.png)
Usability Testing - How Companies Can Benefit From It
- Manoj
- Jun 17, 2021
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 30, 2021
What is Usability Testing?
Usability testing is a method to evaluate a product/app/website, and see how easy it is to use it, by testing it with real users, experts or a group of people having no prior exposure to it.
For companies, the objective might be to test and measure the intuitiveness of their website design, user flows, and content and to find whether the users - who represents their target market, can complete tasks (e.g., adding a product to cart in an e-commerce site) and reach their goals (e.g., checkout and payment of cart items) without encountering problems or getting confused. All of this is conducted and monitored by a 3rd party researcher/examiner or by company staff.
Watching a user perform common tasks on a website is a great way to test whether the site is usable or not, because the researcher can see in real time, whether the users are able to perform the tasks easily or if they face any difficulties while doing it. If more people encounter similar problems, recommendations are made to overcome these usability issues.
Importance of Usability Testing
Usability testing is very important for companies. There are thousands of competitor websites out there, such that, if the users find one site not-usable, it can prompt them to leave it for better alternative ones. That would mean a loss of revenue for that company’s business. You can have the coolest website with over-the-top graphics, images and videos, but if people are unable to figure out how to navigate your site quickly or find it cumbersome to perform an action, they will leave pronto.
It is important to note that, according to Nielsen and Loranger, the three most important characteristics that distinguish a usable web site are simplicity, naturalness and ease of use. These factors makes users revisit a website more.
Consider a scenario where an e-commerce site experiences 60% of their users dropping off on the checkout page and they don’t know the reason why. Running a few usability tests focused on the checkout page can reveal the underlying reasons. It might turn out that the page asks for credit card information too early. Or that there isn’t a suitable payment option listed.
When good usability together with good web design characteristics is implemented, it results in a web site that positively affects user perception and enhances trust that the user has in the company to whom the web site belongs to.
Usability Testing Methods
Companies use various Usability Testing Methods, depending on what they want to assess. They may perform Problem Discovery tests (testing if users can complete certain tasks without running into any issues) or Benchmark tests (directly comparing the usability of two different versions of an app/site, to find the best way to complete a specific task) or Learnability tests (testing how easy or difficult it is to learn to complete tasks effectively over time), and based on the selection of the test, a Method is chosen for Usability Testing.
There can be several Usability Testing methods, but they can all be broadly classified into 3 types,
based on the manner in which they are performed:
In-person moderated – Users perform set of actions, and are observed and interacted with directly, during testing.
Remote moderated – Users complete set of actions remotely, and are observed and interacted with remotely, during testing.
Remote unmoderated – Users complete actions remotely, the results of which are reviewed at a later time, after testing.
The current COVID-19 pandemic situation seems to have made remote testing as the default choice for many businesses.
Some of the prevalent Usability Testing Methods in use are:
1. Guerilla Testing – This method of testing involves going out and selecting random people on the street or other public places to try your website, app, or product and gather the feedback.
2. Hallway Testing – This method of testing uses random people to test the website as opposed to trained and experienced people. It is particularly effective for testing a soon-to-be-launched website during development.
3. Tree Testing – This method allows the users to look at a tree-like sitemap and tell the examiner where they would go to find a specific information in a purely text-based hierarchy. For e.g., the observer could ask the user, “Where would you go to edit your shipping address?” Depending on the answer, the examiner could gauge whether the content on your site is organized in a user-friendly and intuitive way.
4. Functional Salience Testing – This method of testing lets the company know which functions and content to prioritize in their website navigation. Test users are asked to single out the 3-5 most important functions/pages, which will show the company which pages/functions to highlight in the header of their site/app.
5. Free Exploration Testing – This method entails asking users to use a specified amount of time to freely explore a site/app and vocally explain their actions or express their thoughts out loud, as they make them.
6. Interviews & Questionnaires – This method of testing is one-on-one in nature. Interviews enable the observer to ask direct questions to the users. Similarly, the observer can also ask questions by means of questionnaires, the advantage being that they allow more structured data collection, although they are rigid in nature as opposed to interviews.
7. Expert Review – This method of testing employs expert in the field to evaluate the usability of the website. Sometimes the expert is brought to a testing facility to test the website/app, while other times the tests are conducted remotely and automated results are sent back for review.
8. Eye Tracking - This is a testing method that uses pupil-tracking device that tracks users’ eye movements for design solutions which monitors the starting point of a user’s attention, and in what order they focus on every element that follows. They are useful for designing landing pages and ensuring that high-priority elements get full attention. It’s a valuable tool for eCommerce and other customer-facing companies. Heatmaps is another method, but they monitor mouse cursor activity, rather than tracking the eyes directly.
Steps for conducting Usability Testing
No matter whatever the manner or methods used for Usability Testing, the following algorithm must be followed to ensure it is done correctly:
Step 1: Choose the appropriate testing method
Step 2: Determine the testing parameters
Step 3: Designate tasks for the users
Step 4: Delegate testing roles
Step 5: Find participants that resemble your actual user base
Step 6: Run the tests
Step 7: Analyze the results
Step 8: Make changes and repeat
Conclusion
Usability testing must be an ongoing process – running usability tests again after you have made changes not only ensures that the changes you made were appropriate, but will additionally help you discover new usability problems. It also helps companies understand how real users use their product at every step of the development process. But apart from being a tool to help design and development teams to make corrections and take decisions, it also enables companies to build a better product that appeals to and works better for more people. And when a product works better, it is easier to market to, sell to, and onboard new customers.
Comments