At Bellvale Creamery

Electronics recycling day here in Sudbury, MA. My first cell phone (shown sideways to illustrate thickness), Lee's first cell phone, and my first Palm Pilot.

You never forget your first.

Can a house divided against itself stand?

(Note competing paraphenalia)

Palm ads still blanketing Harvard T stop. In lieu of just taking tbem down - or getting new ads up quickly - wouldn't it be refreshing if their new message was "Listen, we effed up - but just you wait!"

I am in fact bullish on acquisition.

AJ, 6 years old, looked at our ladder (in pic) and said "That's the first thing I've ever seen that is made in the U.S.A."

Silver lining: he reads well

AJ shows off the hexbug he earned by scoring his first-ever soccer goal in the first game of the season.  I love it when he practices hard and it pays off.

Heading to panel on consumer e-health innovations at Suffolk and had to stop and take a picture of this beautiful day!

Like many who read Steve Krug’s excellent Don’t Make Me Think, I looked forward to reading his new book about usability testing, Rocket Surgery Made Easy.  It did not disappoint and I highly recommend it to anyone with website management responsibilities.

Krug’s main point-of-view is that inexpensive, in-house usability testing is extremely valuable. He does not demean more extensive usability testing (i.e.: consultants and labs).  Instead he preaches that valuable findings can be identified with what he calls “discount” or “do-it-yourself” testing, especially if conducted regularly.  Throughout the book, Krug provides numerous to-do’s, advice, and scripts that fit into his framework. In fact, one of these tools has already proved to be a valuable internal reference for me.

Recently, I had advocated to teammates that usability testing should be added to one of their projects.  I was met with skepticism, especially to my contention that it could be executed in-house for about $1,000. Enter Rocket Surgery and the handy-dandy sample budget Krug included. I used it in a presentation to demonstrate that, in fact, we can do it for even less than my initial estimate.  My only recommended edit is to use the term “qualitative usability testing” rather than “discount usability testing”.

By the way, there’s great bit of inadvertent blogging inspiration in the book, too.  Krug says he waited to write his second book, because he “hates” writing.  Hey, if he can write two classic books while hating writing, can’t we all pull together a few blog posts?

Let me know what you think of Rocket Surgery and if you plan to use it as a reference to advance your projects.

(disclosure: book links are affiliate links)

AJ hitting with the aluminum bat.  Astute friends will note the Red Sox shirt.

Sure enough, the slugger smacked one right up the middle on the first pitch. Blocked by my chest.

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