Testing: "What, Me Worry?"

The insouciant, Cheshire-cat smile of Alfred E. Newman characterizes the penetrating satire of Mad Magazine's writers and editors. You recall bad-boy Alfred's by-line: "What, Me Worry?" Now Mad Magazine appears on TV. Too bad we don't have time to watch it. We're too busy fixing applications developed with Alfred's philosophy. "What, Me Worry?" substitutes for adequate usability testing in the development life-cycle of too many corporate applications.

Test Early
Good screen design requires usability testing early in the development cycle. Designers try substitutes that all fail. For example, dependence on user comments fails. Dependence solely on user representatives and solely on design walkthroughs fail. Usability outcomes from beta testing fail too, because beta results are too late. Usability changes become too costly to implement.

Usability testing early in the design phase can save you so much time, money, grief, and unneeded conversations (arguments), that the current failures of corporate America deserve as much satire as we can invent.

"What, Me Worry?" characterizes an ostrich syndrome: "What I don't see can't hurt me." Many managers in a hurry invoke ostrich mentality to solve their schedule problems. In our design world, we dub it "cryptotesting." Recall that cryptodesign manifests when a developer uses a design solution suitable for one problem, but misapplies it to another, totally different situation. Instead, use soul design to get it right.

Test Right
Cryptotesting says, in effect, "as long as I feel good, then the application is good." This kind of testing is great for dating or marriage(!), but a hazard for application development. This attitude shows us that the developer has sold his or her soul to the "feel good test." (See Figure 1.) Neurologists (brain doctors) have a name for this disregard of objective evidence: anosognosia, meaning "disease of knowledge." Let's see how it manifested in one medical case from the US Supreme Court.

THE ANOSOGNOSIA OF JUSTICE DOUGLAS In 1975, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas suffered a stroke that affected the right hemisphere of his brain. Since language functions reside in the left hemisphere, Justice Douglas continued to speak as fluently as ever. Therefore, even though the left side of his body was paralyzed from the stroke, everyone expected this brilliant and decisive member of the Court to continue his work on the bench. However, events slowly gave contrary evidence. First, he checked himself out of the hospital against medical advice (he did this several times). Then he trivialized his physical limitations, attributing his hospitalization to "a fall" and discounting his paralysis as "a myth." After being confronted with the fact he could not walk or get out of his wheelchair, he said "Walking has very little to do with the work of the Court." Still chair-bound, he later invited reporters to go hiking with him the following month. He repeatedly failed to follow social convention with other justices and staff. Unable to do his job, he refused to resign. And after being forced to resign, he often acted as if he still had the job.