QUALITY REPLAY: Usability Testing In Industry's Crosshairs As Manufacturers Seek Human Factors Buy-In
Executive Summary
From our digital archives: Device manufacturers that fail to conduct formative testing early on in human factors efforts run the risk of making devices that don’t interact well with users and ultimately require costly fixes. Formatives are “often essential for achieving acceptable human factors validation testing results, minimizing [US FDA pre-market] review time and agency requests for additional information,” says usability guru Ron Kaye. Meanwhile, a quality assurance official at device-maker Kinetic Concepts describes how his firm uses simulation rooms, and other experts offer advice on engraining human factors concepts into company culture.