From User Pain Points to Design Perfection: The Power of Usability Testing
A confusing website, a hard-to-use app, or a product the features don’t work as intended really got us a frustrating and dissatisfied experience because it didn’t meet our expectations, right?
There is actually the key to preventing the frustrating and dissatisfied experience of users in the future, and one of them is applying the user-centered approach and prioritizing usability testing.
With a user-centered approach and by putting our products in the hands of real users and also gathering feedback, we might able to identify issues early in the design process and improve the result for better user experiences.
Get to Know: Usability Testing
Usability Testing or in short, UT, is an assessment testing process of a product or service by using it with a sample of representative people to see how easy and intuitive the design is.
In a brief explanation, the participant will be asked to try to accomplish some typical tasks while the observers watch, listen, and takes notes. It is also often conducted repeatedly, from early development until a product’s release. The usability testing is held using the high-fidelity prototype and not a working software and is held before the coding phase. The goal is to evaluate the product’s design usability, gather qualitative and quantitative information, and assess participant satisfaction.
“It’s about catching customers in the act, and providing highly relevant and highly contextual information.”
— Paul Maritz, CEO at Pivotal
Why Should: Usability Testing?
Usability testing helps the development teams and the design teams create products that are user-friendly, effective, and suit the needs of their target market. Therefore doing usability testing will help them to identify the earlier issues and fix them before the issues get expensive and have a massive impact on the future.
That is one of the advantages of why teams should conduct usability testing, some other advantages are:
- Improving product usability:
Earlier problems that are detected and may affect the product’s usability, such as confusing navigation, vague instructions, or difficult-to-use features, teams can directly receive feedback and the product’s usability can be improved. - Identifying user pain points:
Conducting usability testing allows designers to observe the real behavior of users when interacting with products and see clearly where the areas of users have a lot struggle. Identifying pain points may improve the result in a more positive user experience. - Enhancing user satisfaction and productivity:
Conducting usability testing helps reducing the flaws of previous production and tends to build products that are easy to use and meet the needs of user satisfaction. The more user satisfaction increase, the clear aspects such as user-friendly, easy-to-use features, and others might affect the productivity of users too.
Some Concerns…
There are some concerns that might be considered before holding the usability testing, some of them are:
- High Cost and Time: the budget for doing more than one usability test must be considered. The time to plan the usability testing also must be considered. It will take the usability specialist and the team time to become familiar with the site and pilot test the test scenarios. Be sure to budget in time for this test prep as well as running tests, analyzing the data, writing the report, and presenting the findings.
- Ethical considerations: When conducting usability testing, it’s important to ensure that participants are fully informed about the process, and that their privacy and data are protected. Designers should also avoid bias in their testing and analysis, and strive for objectivity in their approach.
- Expenses of Recruitment: Consider the costs of where or how will we find the volunteers. Either it needs to budget staff time for hiring or hire a recruiting company to schedule participants based on the specifications.
- Participant Compensation: Sometimes it also includes participant compensation if we plan to pay participants for their time or travel to attend the testing event.
Methods in Usability Testing
Many techniques can be used for usability testing, depending on the goals of the test and the resources at hand. Here are some techniques in usability testing:
- Moderator VS Unmoderated Testing:
— A moderated testing session is administered in person or remotely by a trained researcher. A trained researcher or called moderator is the one who will introduce the test to participants, answers their queries, and asks follow-up questions.
— An unmoderated testing session is done without direct supervision or a moderator. The participants might be in a lab and given instruction tasks to try and accomplish and at the end give feedback immediately of the trying event.
— Differences: Moderated testing usually produces in-depth results but can be expensive to organize and run. Meanwhile, the cost of unmoderated testing is lower, though participant answers can remain superficial and follow-up questions are impossible.
— Best practices: To investigate the reasoning behind user behavior, use moderated testing. To investigate unmoderated testing to test a very specific question or observe and measure behavior patterns. - Remote VS In-person Testing:
— Remote testing is a testing session that participants and the researcher gathered in a different place and the testing process is held remotely by the internet. Each participant’s using their own devices,
— In-person testing is a testing session that participants and the researcher gathered in the same place. Requires the test to be completed in the physical presence of a UX researcher/moderator. The researcher also may to observe the behavior of body-language and expression that may affect the result testing.
— Differences: In-person tests provide extra data points, since researchers can observe and analyze body language and facial expressions. In-person testing is usually expensive and time-consuming. In another way, remote testing doesn’t go as deep into a participant’s reasoning, but it allows you to test large numbers of people in different geographical areas using fewer resources. - Explorative VS Assessment VS Comparative testing
— Explorative testing is open-ended testing where the participants are asked to brainstorm, give opinions, and express emotional impressions about ideas and concepts.
— Assessment testing is used to test a user’s satisfaction with a product and how well they are able to use it. It’s used to evaluate the product’s general functionality.
—Comparative testing is methods involve asking users to choose which of two solutions they prefer, and they are used to compare a website with its primary competitors - Expert review:
This method involves experts in usability and user experience evaluating a product and identifying potential usability issues. This method can be helpful in identifying high-level design issues, but may not provide as much insight into how actual users interact with the product. - A/B testing:
This method involves testing two different versions of a product or interface with different groups of users to see which version performs better in terms of usability and user engagement.
Get Started with Quick Conducting Usability Testing
In an iterative usability testing process, a product is typically tested with a small group of users to identify any usability issues or problems. Based on the feedback received from this group, changes are made to the product, and it is tested again with another group of users. This process is repeated until the product is considered to be user-friendly and meets the needs of its intended audience.
Iterative usability testing can help ensure that a product is easy to use, effective, and meets the needs of its users. It allows designers and developers to identify and address any usability issues early on in the design process, which can save time and money in the long run.
Here are some steps to make the usability testing process:
- Plan Session
aDefine what you want to test. Ask ourselves questions about our design. What aspects of it do we want to test? We can make a hypothesis from each answer. With a clear hypothesis, we will have the exact aspect you want to test.
b. Decide how to conduct your test — for example, in person. Define the scope of what to test and stick to it throughout the test. - Set User Tasks
a. Prioritize the most important tasks to meet objectives (e.g., complete checkout), no more than 5 per participant. Allow a 60-minute timeframe.
b. Clearly define tasks with realistic goals.
c. Create scenarios where users can try to use the design naturally. That means we let them get to grips with it on their own rather than direct them with instructions. - Recruit Participants
Recruit a small group of participants who are representative of the target audience. Aim for 3–5 participants, as this will allow you to identify common usability issues without taking too much time or resources. Know who your users are as a target group. Use screening questionnaires to find suitable candidates. You can advertise and offer incentives. - Conduct the testing
Choose a quiet and comfortable environment for testing, such as a conference room or a quiet area of the office. Make sure the testing equipment, such as the computer or device, is set up and ready to use. Observe problems and check to see if users miss items, proceed in the wrong path, or interpret rules incorrectly. - Collect Feedback
Collect feedback from the participants after the testing is complete. Ask specific questions about the usability of the design and what improvements could be made. Keep notes and record the feedback for future reference. - Analyze the Feedback
Analyze the feedback to identify common usability issues and prioritize them based on their severity and impact on the user experience. Use the feedback to inform design improvements and iterate on the design
Conducting Quick Usability Testing (Implementation in PPL C06)
In the implementation of PPL C06, we can design as follows:
- Create a form description of the test and the features that want to try by adjusting the following description:
a. Test Component, title, and description: As the identity of the test description
b. Test Step: the clear instruction for participants to do the test
c. The Expected Result
Here is a draft of our full test description document:
2. Held the session
Next, we carry out testing to ensure that the product is made according to the test cases that have been prepared. For example, suppose we are going to test a test description verifying a job vacancy with a test description succeeds as follows:
We want to test the verify behavior, click verify button
The job vacancy Data Analyst is already deleted from unverified job vacancy list page, and there are notification of successful task. Also we might check the verified list:
Yup. In the verified job vacancy page there are Data Analyst job vacancy which successfully verified. Yay!
AR/VR Usability Testing, How?
With the rise of virtual and augmented reality technologies, usability testing has become increasingly important for ensuring a seamless and comfortable user experience. Usability testing in AR/VR presents unique challenges due to the immersive nature of the technology. This amazing article written by Mr. Hunsucker, there describes the main problem of how do you usability test in AR/VR?
Based on the standard testing environment, the usability testing will be held in a lab with computers set up and monitoring software and record tools and if possible using the eye-tracking technology. The testers basically will have separate rooms with a pane of one-way glass, or a video camera, which lets people watch the test while it’s happening. Then, how the usability testing will be held and what makes it different with common usability testing?
- Closely Resembles The Actual Setting Testing Environment. Set the experience environment then set the test with the respective places. This is especially crucial if there are specific usage norms or expectations within that environment. Avoid doing tests in different sets of rooms in terms of the structure of the place. Cheap is not a problem, the most important is the layout of the place is right.
- Consult with a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to review our testing environment though we know what space is supposed to look like. It is beneficial to have an SME provide their input. Their perspective will reveal aspects that you may have overlooked.
- Clear Understanding Of User’s Experience. Make sure everyone in the team knows what the experience looks like to the user. Having a comprehensive knowledge of the location of the holograms within the space will make it simpler to comprehend the user’s actions and their experience.
- Record User View. Recording the user’s view is essential and must be proper to capture while avoiding interrupting user’s experience but ensure that someone keeps track of the recording and takes notes when it’s not functioning correctly.
- Monitor the participant’s behavior thoroughly. Augmented reality involves the user interacting within a physical space. Therefore, closely observe the user as they navigate the space, explore their surroundings, and interact with both tangible and virtual objects. Analyze their expected actions and compare them to their actual behavior.
Accessibility Testing
Ensuring that designs are accessible to people with disabilities is not only a legal requirement, but it is also important for creating inclusive and user-friendly designs. Accessibility Testing is testing a web application in order to make sure that each and every user can easily access the website.
The goal of accessibility testing is to ensure that all users can access, understand, and interact with digital content regardless of their abilities. Accessibility testing is a subset of usability testing, which focuses on evaluating the overall usability of a product for all users.
While usability testing evaluates the ease of use and user satisfaction with a product, accessibility testing ensures that users with disabilities can use it effectively. This reveals insights that help in making websites more accessible to all.
How the step by step to perform the accessibility testing?
- Understand the relevant accessibility guidelines and standards.
— Accessibility of the web can be measured with the help of web accessibility standards created by the W3C known as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). - Identify Potential Barriers.
— Identify any potential barriers to accessibility in the product. This may involve evaluating the product’s design, layout, and functionality. - Conduct Range of Tests & Evaluate the Product’s Accessibility.
— This may include testing with assistive technologies such as screen readers and voice recognition software, as well as conducting user testing with individuals with disabilities. The testing team should also conduct automated testing using tools that can identify common accessibility issues, such as color contrast problems and missing alt tags.
Below are some of the values that may achieve by Accessibility Testing besides the values of Usability Testing:
In contemporary technologies, it has become increasingly important to ensure better accessibility. As such, websites and applications should strive to be digitally accessible to all users. To achieve this, usability and digital accessibility testing are crucial. Such testing can facilitate a website or app’s ability to provide a pleasant user experience to a diverse audience, including people with disabilities.
Here, Let’s Sum Up!
A crucial step in product development is usability testing, which helps ensure that a product is user-friendly and fits the needs of its target market. Basic scenario design, which entails determining the main tasks that users are likely to carry out with the product, is a crucial phase in usability testing. Another key step that can aid in detecting usability difficulties early in the design process is fast usability testing.
Usability testing results analysis and reporting can offer important insights into user behavior, preferences, and needs. Overall, usability testing is an iterative process that can assist designers and developers in producing goods that are user-friendly, efficient, and responsive. Some other interesting topics about usability testing are how to conduct AR/VR usability testing and get to know about accessibility testing. Both are actually not really so much different with usability testing, but both need to be adjust from the usual usability testing.
