one. What is a "design review"?
Definition: Design review is a usability testing tool, usually by a reviewer to review usability issues in a design proposal.
The term "design review" is quite broad and refers to several usability testing methods, each of which is used differently by the individual (reviewer) and the purpose of the review. Common design review methods include:
Heuristic Evaluation : The standard of heuristic evaluation is that the design scheme must follow a set of design principles, such as Nielsen's ten usability principles.
Independent Design Critique : Independent Design Critique is an evaluation method that analyzes the design in progress (usually in the form of group dialogue) to decide whether the design scheme achieves the goal and is friendly to the experience.
Expert Review: Expert review refers to the detailed inspection of usability issues by UX experts on the website/or some functions of the website and some functions of the App/App. Many companies don't know the line between expert review and heuristic evaluation, and it's okay to use expert review as a more general method than heuristic evaluation.
Once a detailed prototype has been drawn, the design review can begin. Since the design review is only based on the detailed inspection of the design draft itself, which is different from the real usage scenarios of users, what we can test is the design description/markup in the design draft, the abstract interface without real users, etc.
(Additional note: The advantage of this is that you can verify whether the design is feasible before product development is launched.) Another advantage of design review is that you can independently analyze different modules of the design draft, such as dialog boxes, exception handling processes, etc. (In the user testing session, we mostly test the more important first- and second-level user tasks and processes, rather than testing individual small functions.)
This article is primarily concerned with expert review.
2. Expert review
Expert review is mainly to conduct sufficient heuristic evaluation to verify whether the design scheme follows the design criteria, whether it violates common usability principles, whether it violates the principles related to usability such as cognitive psychology and human-computer interaction, and whether it is consistent with the review experts in this field. professional knowledge, work experience, etc. It is precisely because of the emphasis on previous work experience and expertise that this review method is called "expert" review.
A written recommendation will be delivered after the expert review; even if the recommendation is given orally by the expert during the review meeting, it should be documented in writing. Although it takes more time to create and read written review suggestions, written suggestions are more detailed and can also be used as a reference for subsequent design revisions. Recommendations can be sorted by availability issue severity or frequency of occurrence.
Since it is said that expert reviews need to be conducted by UX experts, then we have to ask: what kind of people can become UX experts. No one can succeed just by chance - the only way to become a UX expert is to constantly practice UX and master real user behavior . If you just design in a vacuum environment without knowing the target users, then there is no need for reviewing the design plans that are photographed by "shooting your head". Of course, the number of working years of UX experts does not mean that they have to reach the number of years, because some people acquire UX knowledge faster, and some people can understand the real behavior of users better, so there is no need to strictly limit the working years. It can be said that you are not an expert when you first start working in UX, and it takes time to accumulate breadth and depth to reach the expert level.
3. A third perspective
If the reviewer has profound usability practice and rich research experience, he will be responsible for the design review and will achieve very professional b2b data results; and the reviewer at this level can not do specific prototype drawing, but only be responsible for the team's review work. In this way, we can get objective and professional modification suggestions from the third perspective - reviewers who do not need to draw prototype diagrams will not be emotional about the design plan, and will not be limited by business/development/operations, etc. It's easy to spot usability-related issues from the perspective of prototyping that would take a long time for a prototyping person to find out on their own. (Note: The reason why it is difficult for prototyping staff to proofread their own design drafts is because the parties will see more of what they have written/drawn subjectively, and sometimes it is difficult to accurately identify what should be presented on the interface and whether the design is really realized. Purpose.)
Compared with the design stage, in the testing stage (additional note: this refers to the test in which real users participate in the use of the product. The general user will complete the test in the laboratory, and the corresponding staff will observe in the observation room; there is only one mirror in the laboratory and the observation room. After that, the staff can see the user through the mirror, but the user has no idea behind the mirror.)