How do your users view your user interface design?

Usability experts are into user testing to evaluate the quality of an interface since they need to be sure that the designed interface is usable, accessible and close to the user needs.

These evaluations are managing different artifacts, such as heuristic tests, thinking aloud sessions, interviews, surveys, eye tracking analysis, etc. All these tools have a motive: to collect statistical data in order to analyze it and go back to refining and re-designing - if necessary.

Any mistake during the preparation of a usability test can make it fail. So, to select the right target users and the right questions, items, topics, tasks, etc. to be performed is a very difficult decision. Despite nowadays there are thousands of templates; they will require adaptations to fit the application purpose.

Because of that, and because the visual communication is easier to understand by designers, I’ve been thinking why don’t we change the rules and the roles and let the user sketch the interface exactly as they are perceiving it, however.

This sketching test can be interesting for different reasons:

Help designer to know whether users have understood the hierarchy, the most important items and the general idea or not.

1. It's very quick and you can get in a look the main goods and fails.
2. Let users to put attention in details important for them, not just for designers.
3. Let designers realize about the useless visual components according to user draws.
4. It is easy to understand by designers.
5. It is funny to try out for target users.

And you, what do you think? Does it make any sense?