ABSTRACT
This paper was originally intended as a precursor to the panel discussion on usability testing in the usability symposium at the lEA conference, Tampere, Finland, in 1997 and as a stimulus for debate. It assumes a 'devil's advocate' position and questions the value of user trialling from three positions: a general level which may loosely be termed philosophical, the methodological position, and the pragmatic dilemma. It concludes with a discussion of some of the requirements of successful usability testing.
