Dear Gunnar,

This is an interesting thought, but I'd have to lean more toward no
than yes on art school crits as a form of user testing.

Having visited many art schools over the years, it has been my
observation that most crits are not the equivalent of user tesing.
In fact, they are often not the equivalent of serious art criticism,
with a reasonable and justified examination of issues. When one
of "justification" in this sense, one does not mean "right" or
"valid," but merely a thoughtful examination of issues based
on some range of principles or well though out positions. What
one hopes for in an art crit, as I see it, is informed response and
dialog with the artist. Now that is not entirely unlike a design
crit or an architecture crit -- at least as it should be.

But user testing is something else entirely. Crits are supposedly
expert evaluation by informed respondents. If they are not, they
are not good crits.

In contrast, user testing asks what the ordinary user experiences,
thinks, and feels. Now, in one sense, an ordinary user may
actually be an expert -- even more highly trained than a designer
in many aspects of the artifact and its use. This is often the case
with advanced technology -- people that fly jet planes are both
highly trained experts and, given the nature of their work, far
more aware of aspects related to reflexes, locating data, or time
and work flow constraints than a designer can be. The "ordinary"
users of an automobile or a mobile phone, on the other hand, may
not be expert at all. But they are expert in what they need.

I recently heard a former air force officer grumbling about his
mobile phone -- now this is a person that understands high tech,
but the phone complaint is simple: it takes a thick manual to
understand it and it does more than is needed, but the ordinary
user can only make it do one or two things because the amount
of information required for expert use is too simple.

Tea pots, telephones, seats, pizza delivery boxes -- all have
multiple and different kinds of users, and what we learn from
user testing involves a wide range of issues from best fit for
the function to appropriate pricing to ease of delivery and
after-sales service.

That's the kind of insight we don't seek and we don't get in
art school crits.

Multiple this issue times dozens or even hundreds of issues that
may arise in user testing -- recognizing their importance to users,
manufacturers, and all stakeholders, and you'll see a level of
intent and practice that simply don't come up in art school crits,
not even in good ones. And over the years, talking with art
students -- the "users" of the crits -- I came away feeling that
helpful crits were far less common than annoying, rude, painful,
or confusing crits. In contrast, most serious designers enjoy and
learn from user testing.

Warm wishes,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
Professor
Dean

Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia


Gunnar Swanson wrote:

On Jun 12, 2010, at 9:38 AM, Owain Pedgley wrote:

> Gold summarises this, for me, perfectly: "for an artist user-testing
> is a joke. For a designer it’s fundamental”.

Like so much of this (and pretty much any discussion along these
lines)--yes and no. Isn't art school all about user testing? That
seems to be the nature of most crits.

Gunnar