Comfortable with Ambiguity

Usability is not a precise science consisting of formulas and black and white answers. Even if a usability test is conducted under the most rigorous conditions, which is atypical, you are still not assured that all of the results are valid and generalizable to your entire user population. Instead, usability testing can often be an imprecise, ambiguous enterprise, with varying and sometimes conflicting observations, not surprising for any venture that has human beings as its focus. A test moderator, then, must understand and be comfortable with

ambiguity.

For example, prior to testing you may think that there are only two ways to perform a particular task. During testing though, you discover that the participants have found four other ways to perform the same task. Or, you discover that you are no closer to a clear-cut resolution of a product's problems after a week of testing than you were before you began. Or, when testing multiple versions of a product, no clear winner emerges. The versions are all equally bad or, if you are lucky, equally good. These situations require patience, perseverance, and very often skill at negotiation. Without tolerance for ambiguity and the patience to persevere, the test moderator tends to rationalize and to blame the participants for making unplanned choices during the test