5.7.3 The Pilot Study

You should always do a pilot study as part of any usability test. A pilot study is like a dress rehearsal for a play: you run through everything you plan to do in the real study and see what needs to be fixed. Do this twice, once with colleagues, to get out the biggest bugs, and then with some real test users. You'll find out whether your policies on giving assistance are really workable and whether your instructions are adequately clear. A pilot study will help you keep down variability in a bottom-line study, but it will avoid trouble in a thinking-aloud study too. Don't try to do without!