For many content mediums, it can be difficult to tell to what extent the potential audience influenced a work -- how much the invisible reader influenced a story, or how much an observer was in mind when an image took shape on a canvas.
In the instance of a web site, though, it's more often assumed that the medium and the audience are inextricably connected. To design a web site is to design a user experience: a web page isn't just a page, it's a space that users navigate.
Any testing or assessment of a design, then, will extend beyond the content on a page to a number of factors associated with it: where did the user come from, what were their expectations coming to the site, what did they first gravitate towards, and where will they go from here?
Even if a plan isn't user-tested specifically, questions about the user experience will undoubtedly inform the design of a site, or the design of any tool or structure associated with interaction. In industrial design, the questions of whether to couple the Pause button with the Play or Power button may vary depending on what function, exactly, the user expects to pause.
One group, though, has applied a similar line of questioning to what's often perceived of as a non-interactive medium, the book. Rosenfeld Media recently began crafting a plan to user-test both the design and content of their upcoming book, "Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior."
On his blog, Publisher Lou Rosenfeld asked readers How would you test the design of a book? And the responses shed light on the book's use as not just a vehicle for traditional content, but as a medium experienced through its design and its qualities as an object.
Regarding reference books, one reader noted context as a design consideration. "Where will readers use the book-as-object? Sitting at a computer? Teaching in a classroom? Training in office meetings? Does the type leave enough room for underlining/note taking, or does the ink hold up OK to highlighting? How might its shape, binding, weight, etc. lend itself to those activities?"
Other ideas include: What makes a book findable on a crowded desk or on the bookshelf? Should it be small enough to transport easily, or should it be designed to stay open for reference? Do the design and content both impart credibility? And how will users most easily navigate internal references, such as subscripts, for example.
This isn't to say that there aren't already parallels between print and the web. Early feedback on a website's plan can be effectively garnered by testing the design on paper, as Pop Art did when designing SelecTrucks web site. By applying user-testing practices to the book, however, it brings up the question of what might be ‘interactive’… and how an audience can influence any medium, when asked to respond to it.
The greatest benefit of the user testing may not just be the validation of baseline expectations -- if the typography is optimal for the book's design, for example -- but opening oneself up to the unanticipated responses or possibilities.