Late-stage services
UI triage
With little time left in the project, you
know you have UI problems... but what are they, and which
ones should you fix given your time and budget constraints?
With expert analysis (or, if time permits, lightweight
usability testing) we'll identify the issues that will
cause the most pain, and recommend straightforward fixes.
Our developer's background helps us give you a prioritized
list of suggestions, ranked by "bang for the buck", so you
can easily incorporate our recommendations into your
endgame planning. Think of it as QA from the human
perspective.
Message review
The text of your software's messages
and prompts is usually easy to change, even near the end of
the project. Developers usually don't have the time to
consider these messages in detail while coding --
especially those related to errors and unusual conditions.
But messages that are concise, appropriately detailed, and
easy to understand help to increase usability and reduce
support costs. Let us review your source code and resources
(or extracted message text) to ensure that your software
communicates effectively with its users.
Documentation review
Your user documentation, help
files, and other support materials are often a user's first
place to look when they get stuck or confused. Are yours
effective? We can review your documentation and suggest
ways to make it work better, or even write critical
sections for you. This service works best in conjunction
with
UI Triage, so there are opportunities
to fix things that are difficult to document clearly (and
are therefore probably hard to use).
Usability testing
Formal or casual usability
testing should be a part of any QA process. Even though the
system may meet requirements and have few defects, if
people won't use it, the project will fail. We'll work with
you to design a usability test plan that meets your budget,
run the test, and provide actionable, prioritized
recommendations based on the results, as well as hard,
quantitative evidence to drive future UI priorities.
