Field Usability Testing: Method, Not Compromise

This paper discusses a user research method the authors have refined over several years: field usability testing. Field usability testing combines techniques from traditional laboratory usability testing and condensed contextual inquiry, itself an adaptation of traditional contextual inquiry methods. The authors describe two approaches or models of field usability testing: ethnographic and structured. Three case histories illustrate the method, giving examples of the ethnographic model and the structured model.