Hi Sugar Design Group:<br clear="all"><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>I enjoyed the meeting yesterday, and think we ended up making several good decisions. However, regarding the Home view, I am now beginning to wonder if we are doing the right thing by hastily changing the design without conducting a proper qualitative study.</div> <div><br></div><div>I am only questioning it because I feel that, with every major design change, it would be best if we had real evidence, beyond just the anecdotal. Ideally, I envision the design team being a part of these observations, and systematically testing design decisions in the field with a number of participants. It need not be more than say a sampling of 20-30 students of various age-groups, but the insight from these observations could really drive us to make more informed design decisions, based on more than just our opinions (which, as we saw yesterday, tends to lead to compromise).</div> <div><br></div><div>So, I personally think that we are at a point where we should try and arrange for some user-testing for the design group, however we facilitate it, before proceeding with any revisions to the existing design (though I wouldn't want that to hold us back from adding any additional features like the thumbnail view, that continue to build out the UI to match the original design intent). I have a little experience putting together qualitative test protocols, and while I'm not sure exactly how to facilitate these testing sessions, I think some of you may have ideas.</div> <div><br></div><div>What do you think? Should we use our meeting next Saturday to discuss our options for testing?</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Christian</div><div><br>-- <br><a href="mailto:anything@christianmarcschmidt.com">anything@christianmarcschmidt.com</a><br> 917/ 575 0013<br><br><a href="http://www.christianmarcschmidt.com">http://www.christianmarcschmidt.com</a><br><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/christianmarcschmidt">http://www.linkedin.com/in/christianmarcschmidt</a><br> <a href="http://twitter.com/cms_">http://twitter.com/cms_</a><br> </div>