Usability Testing Is Undermining UX Design (Peter Hornsby)

... although I’ve never before considered usability testing as something that falls into the large—and growing—list of things that undermine effective UX design work, I’ve recently had a number of conversations with designers that suggest their perception of usability testing is fundamentally wrong. I’ve heard both junior and senior designers express their perception of usability testing in different ways, but the core message is the same: They believe that nothing can be known about a design that a team is going to implement unless that design has been tested with the target audience. That no knowledge is possible and nothing can be said about a design with any degree of confidence, unless its usability has been validated for specific use cases, in specific circumstances, with a specific set of users, and for a specific combination of browser and device. (uxmatters.com)