In this article, Jakob Nielson describes how developers should pay attention do what users do on their site, rather than what they say. In the past, most projects were unsuccessful due to the complexity of a website when all people wanted was simplicity. Now, public websites are focusing on making it easy for customers to do business; and intranets are focusing on improving employee productivity. Now, the new problem is getting usability right. Nielson says to discover which design works best, watch users as they engage with the interface. Watch what the users actually do, rather than what they say they do or what they may do in the future. Only after people have engaged with a design should one collect data from users. Nielson and Jonathan Levy found that there was a 0.44 correlation between the user’s measured performance and their stated preference. In collecting this data, the group typically bend the truth to be what they think the designer wants to hear. This is why it is so important to pay attention to what they are actually engaging with in the design rather than simply collecting data.
Nielson, Jakob. “First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Users.” Nielsen Norman Group, 4 Aug. 2001, www.nngroup.com/articles/first-rule-of-usability-dont-listen-to-users/.
The first rule of usability is something that the empathy map does as well. There is Says,Think, Feel, and Does. Does only looks at what the user does and records how they interact with the website. I find it interesting that your article said users typically bend the truth..How useful do you think an empathy map would be if people can bend their truths for the designer? It’s usually not on purpose so maybe it still has use.
Although we did the same article, I feel like we took a different look at it. I looked more into the details behind, where as you stayed with the idea of user actually navigating the website; great insight. Do you feel like things on website improve after you leave survey?