Usability testing
“Two distinct advantages to formal testing: it provides feedback for site development, and it is an educational opportunity for designers and engineers, allowing them to see firsthand the decision-making process of an average site visitor”
–Jupiter Research.
Unlike a focus group which elicits group opinions, usability testing gives you individual behavioral feedback. The difference is key: users interact with designs on their own, not in a group. How users behave with your design is more important than what they think of it.
Usability Testing
Definition:
An industry standard approach to assessing usability (ease of use and ease of learning). Consists of 1:1 interviews with users. Observe users as they use your product to determine errors, issues and opportunities.
Benefits:
- Get feedback directly from your users.
- Get validation on your design.
- Understand user behavior.
- Measure your User Experience and task success- the #1 metric.
- Pinpoint confusions, frustrations, errors.
- Optimize conversion and user adoption.
Methods we use:
Lab based usability testing; Portable usability testing; online user testing.
Deliverables:
Usability test report. Includes design recommendations.
Usability testing reduces the risk of building the wrong thing. Thereby saving time, money and other precious resources.
In other words, it finds problems when they are still easy and cheap to fix.
When to do usability testing:
- Get feedback directly from your users.
- Get validation on your design.
- Understand user behavior.
- Measure task success.
- Pinpoint confusions, frustrations, errors.
- Optimize conversion and user adoption.
How Agile Teams use Usability Testing
- Gain fast assessment of how well a UI works for users.
- Get regular and just-in-time feedback.
- Validate UI/UX direction.
- Leverage our remote or rapid Agile Usability testing.
- Marry Agile + UX for maximum product quality.
- Feed your development team real-world user feedback.