I never thought that a focus group and a usability test would have that much of a difference. But chapter 10 points out that a focus group is something that you want to do before you begin designing the site and usability testing should be applied during the revisions of the site. The focus group deals more with abstract things and the usability testing is more for practical issues. It kind of reminds me of the difference between a brainstorming session and a critiquing workshop.
The brainstorming session (and believe me, I've had to have many in order to survive English classes) does more things with getting ideas flowing and determining what the paper should be about, what needs to be in it, and whether or not your topic is sufficient. And the critique session is where you really find out if the paper works or not. Someone else reads it without the writer hovering over the critic's shoulder and decides what needs changed and whether or not it does it's job.
I'd have to say that my "reservoir of goodwill" is not as full as most people's. Basically, I'm impatient when it comes to the Internet. However, reading through Krug's list of "things that diminish goodwill," I picked the one that bothers me the most: Asking me for information you don't really need.
"Most users are very skeptical of requests for personal information, and find it annoying if a site asks for more than what's needed for the task at hand."
Am I the only one on this? I hate when I have to fill out information before I can sign up for an account of some sort and they force you to answer all of these meaningless questions that aren't of importance to the situation. I hate that. It really made me think about what I would do if I were the web designer. How would I make my site the least annoying for my user?
My reservoir of goodwill is more like a puddle. Computers just bring out the worst moods in me (let's just say I picked this major because of the writing).
Speaking of asking for information you don't need, who else is annoyed by those questionnaires at the beginning of FastWeb?
Oh brainstorming sessions, or as I like to refer to them: "throwing a grenade and seeing if it goes off". An idea is a grenade because you can never be too sure of how it is going to be received. It can explode (people can like it) or they can hate it (grenade doesn't detenate).*just a metaphor*
The focus group allows for suggestion to what may make your site useful, and the usability testing is to see if those suggestions were effective.
Brainstorming sessions are the tilling before the planting of seeds. Usuability testing keeps us from have a enormously huge ego. Sometimes we are stuck on so many ideas that we forget that the users have to "get it".
you're as cold as ice, but don't stop believing.