No Usability Test Is an Island: Is Our Expertise Enough on Its Own?

Abstract

As technology products continue to offer more services to more types of user for more reasons, it’s becoming harder and harder to make a living as an expert in only one area. When so many factors contribute to the way people respond to a web-site or a technology product, it seems increasingly that usability expertise is no longer enough in itself. Instead, experts in a number of specialities now need to know more about each other if they are to be able to give clients what they want. Branding, marketing, technology, consumer research and graphic design are mingling with each other and with usability to influence the way users experience technology — it’s very difficult to apply one without an awareness of the other. This chapter illustrates the pitfalls of having too much as well as too little expertise, and argues for both a greater integration of skillsets and a deeper appreciation of expertise.