Monday, February 2, 2009

Thinking Aloud...!

What is this?
Thinking aloud (Nielsen, 1994), may be the single most valuable usability engineering method. It involves having a end user continuously thinking out loud while using the system.

Purpose
By verbalizing the users thoughts, the test users enable us to understand how they view the system, and this again makes it easier to identify the end users' major misconceptions. By showing how users interpret each individual interface item, THA facilitates a direct understanding of which parts of the dialogue cause the most problems.

Points of Interest
a failure to lend itself well to most types of performance measurement; the different learning style is often perceived as unnatural, distracting and strenuous by the users; non-analytical learners generally feel inhibited; time consuming since briefing the end users is a necessary part of the preparation. Causing users to focus and concentrate is both an advantage and disadvantage since it results in less than natural interactions at times and THA results in being faster due to the users focus.

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