Usability Testing and Human Ethics: Generic Approval
While I respect the Human Ethics approval process, I thought it would be unnecessarily inconvenient to create a proposal and obtain approval for every usability study, because the basics of most studies are so similar.
I talked to the chairperson of the committee, Prof. Graeme Kennedy, and suggested that they allow a "generic" application for usability testing. He accepted this, and gave me some advice on how to frame the application. I consulted with Ewan Tempero and Judy Brown on the details, and made an application, which was then approved by the committee.
This means that we can now do usability testing with human subjects without any additional approval, providing that we keep to the terms of my application. Where some plan for usability testing cannot keep to those terms, a separate application must be made.
I am pleased that the committee was flexible in this matter, and hope that with the approval, we will now find it easier to involve usability evaluation in our research and teaching.
One other thing: the approval is valid until October 31, 2002, at which point they'll want to review how things have worked.
Here is the relevant correspondence: my cover letter and my application for generic approval.
