Rocket Surgery Made Easy: Book Report
Contrary to the book’s title Rocket Surgery Made Easy has nothing to do with rockets or surgery. Krug deconstructs the notion that usability tests are difficult and impossible to complete. He encourages and instructs designers on how to conduct their own usability tests. Not only does usability refer to identifying website navigation issues but it can also apply to web applications and desktop software. While Krug stresses that his book is not comprehensive, it still shows you how to find and fix usability issues. He does so by using only one type of testing which can be characterized as simple, informal, small-sample etc.
Do-it-yourself testing is considered qualitative which means it gives you a deeper understanding of how to improve what you are creating. Quantitative testing, however, measures and proves something. “DIY” testing is convenient because it can be informal and unscientific. The point is not to prove anything statistically, it’s to find major problems with your build.
Krug suggests doing one round of testing each month with only three users. Keeping in mind once a month is the minimum and shouldn’t be done any less than this.
Testing should be done in the morning followed by a team debriefing session over lunch. Each test should last 50 minutes for each user. Their tests will consist of two primary parts; tasks and scenarios. As the names suggest tasks are the most important things people need to be able to do when they visit your site. Scenarios are fictitious but relevant situations you hope the user can figure out on your site. The debriefing session will consist of a meeting with your team members in an informal setting to discuss the results from the morning.
One of the biggest misconceptions about usability testing is that it should not be done until your website is completed. Testing early is paramount. It prevents designers from committing to a potentially flawed site. Testing early and often is the best approach to development. Krug also adamantly encourages all team members to watch the usability tests. They are invaluable because of the unbiased information they provide about your target audience.
I personally found Rocket Surgery Made Easy to be a painless read. The book is only 161 pages(inculding the index) and could easily be completed in a day. I am the kind of person who this book was made for. Analytical terms scare me and I assume they can’t possibly apply to me. Krug does an excellent job at giving designers confidence to complete a very important part of their development process that might otherwise have been left to an expensive usability professional. Not until reading this book did I realize the importance of usability tests. I am guilty of committing to designs without the necessary input from those who will use them the most.
If you’d like to purchase the book it’s available at http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Surgery-Made-Easy-Do-It-Yourself/dp/0321657292/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412868636&sr=8-1&keywords=Rocket+Surgery .
