Seeking Reference for Usability Company

[Tom Moellering]

I need to hire a usability company to advise on designing a web application for the Education industry. Have you had a good experience with a company you can recommend? Chicago or San Fran is ideal.

[Sam Ng]

Bolt Peters is a good crowd. Try Nate: http://www.boltpeters.com/

[Steven Farrell]

The first thing I would suggest is making sure you have a great User Experience or Interaction Designer implementing your solutions. In my opinion the success of any software solution will rely on having an educated, informed and talented designer driving interaction design. This is not a person to just make your UI pretty but someone who understands application delivery and user experience. They should be able to identify and help you find the right audience/participants for usability at the right time of design and development.

For the actual execution you can run your own sessions on the cheap using a methodology known as Gorilla Usability, which works great, or if you have a college or university near they may have a state of the art lab. You can work with them to use the lab and resources to execute usability sessions while providing educational and research opportunities for the school. Expect to offer some honorarium to the participants, but depending on schools around you, you can get top notch results for little or no money. Hiring a firm can cost allot of money and may be what you need up front, but as an ongoing solution may not be the right answer.

I have a long history with UX and interface design and believe that an in-house solution is the way to go. Usability is an ongoing necessity for any product. As your product and market grows and changes you will want to continue usability testing. Starting early with an in-house process allows you to grow with your product.

There is allot of info on the net for learning and conducting usability. Hope this helps.