Article author here. This raises the question of whether we should be facilitating usability testing sessions on our own designs. Generally it's something I try to avoid unless the situation demands it. It takes a lot of discipline to facilitate a session objectively when your own design work is performing poorly and the client is watching it happen live!
Yup. It does take discipline... but it's one worth acquiring I think :-)
People need to switch from thinking "dumb user" (very bad) or "I suck at design" (bad) to "yay - I learned something". Adding more people into the testing loop is possibly good for objectivity - but really bad for lengthening the feedback loop and making it much less communicative.
It fits in with your general point that we don't talk enough about failure enough. Failure is normal in the design process. I expect the first few iterations to be complete fk ups in one way or another. That's just the way life is. People are complicated.
Be open about it. Test early and often. Learn and improve.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 18.2 ms ] threadSuddenly I realised that usability testing is only fun when it rips apart someone else’s work!
Been there oh so many times.
People need to switch from thinking "dumb user" (very bad) or "I suck at design" (bad) to "yay - I learned something". Adding more people into the testing loop is possibly good for objectivity - but really bad for lengthening the feedback loop and making it much less communicative.
It fits in with your general point that we don't talk enough about failure enough. Failure is normal in the design process. I expect the first few iterations to be complete fk ups in one way or another. That's just the way life is. People are complicated.
Be open about it. Test early and often. Learn and improve.