Abstract
Before going ahead with international usability testing, it is important to understand and evaluate the elements which will contribute to its success. Some of these are organizational and political in nature, others are related to logistics, still others to international and cultural factors. This chapter provides a first-person account of a set of international usability evaluations which were dubbed the “Round the World Usability Testing Tour”. In order to test the usability of a new oscilloscope, Hewlett-Packard tested it on users in the USA, Switzerland and Japan. The chapter gives a graphic account of the kinds of problems encountered — from seemingly minor technical difficulties to major differences in culture — and how these were overcome.
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© 1998 Springer-Verlag London Limited
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Dray, S.M., Rowland, L.R. (1998). Round the World in 18 Days. In: The Politics of Usability. Practitioner Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1530-4_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1530-4_14
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-76181-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-1530-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive