Thread by @rat9

What is Situational Usability Testing? The Usability Testing carried out under different situations. Under Stressful conditions, our mind and body react differently. Fingers turn sweaty. Touch screen can't recognise sweaty, dirty, food granule sticking to finger touches.
Take

another example of booking Uber Taxi. The Situation influences our Behaviour that influences our Actions. Visualize these three situations while booking Uber Taxi. It is raining heavily, the person is half drenched and he is trying to book the taxi. An employee is engaging in a

sales conversation with his clients standing near the lift trying to book Uber at the same time to take them for a site visit. A person booking Uber from the comfort of his home sitting on his bed.
Let's take an example from Healthcare. Product Features can be

broadly distinguished into Primary and Secondary Features. Primary Features are further distinguished into Critical Features and Frequently used Features. Given an example suppose its a Healthcare product. Alarms are not something that beeps all the time. They only beep

in a critical situation. However, when the alarm beeps, that feature becomes the first priority. Now to make the situation under control, a certain set of interaction need to be followed that should be apparent on the screen and accessible in minimum clicks. There are a lot

of products which fail to handle critical situations appropriately. One of the examples is The US Navy will replace its touchscreen controls with mechanical ones on its destroyers, after a deadly 2017 crash between a destroyer and an oil tanker. theverge.com/2019/8/11/2080…

Vehicle Touch Screen Dashboards are another example that needs to go through Situational Usability Testing.

#SituationalUsabilityTesting #UsabilityTesting #Usability #UserExperience #UX #UXDesign #UIDesign #Healthcare #Medical #IoT #USNavy #HMI #HCI #Design #UXResearch

#contextualinquiry

I think this word "Situational Usability" sounds closer to evaluative research post mvp draft and can interchangeably be used with the terminology Contextual Inquiry that is evaluative research but sounds like generative research pre mvp phase. In my opinion this word

"Situational Usability" could sell Contextual Inquiry for Critical Devices by making it sound important to a Bureaucrat / Decision Maker / Layman. "John we have a situation", is more intriguing than saying "John observe the context". Think about it. Design Advocacy is important

and we need to convince Layman Stakeholders at various stages. May be making an important term look important could save future Boeing Max and US Navy touch screen type accidents. #UX #contextualinquiry #SituationalUsability #ObservationalStudy #ethnography #userresearch

Contextual Enquiry is generative research and situational usability is evaluative research. #ux #uxresearch #userresearch

Most of the apps are tested from comfort of lab in lack of clear guidance and to minimise project cost. Situational Usability Testing pass the message loud and clear, be in the situation and then test, don't assume. I have a background in clinical HMI to HCI device design.

The newly designed apps & devices fail to collect data unless they are placed in the actual environment, stress levels turned high and critical scenarios are played. Even then some scenarios are missed. So, we have build a seperate room beside the dormitory. Somewhere in the

hospital a real patient will be connected with trusted legacy device. The legacy device's data will be replicated in the new device in real time. Then we follow nurses and doctors dealing with the patient actor connected with replicated device. I call it situational usability

testing that bridge a lot of gap and ambiguity due to replication of environment. #SituationalUsability #Usability #UserExperience #UserResearch #UXResearch #UX #Research

Situational usability testing is an improvised version of in-context usability testing.

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