Understanding Usability Testing and its Importance

Usability testing is a UX research methodology and sometimes people also call it user testing. In the usability testing method, the researcher or moderator, or facilitator asks one user to complete several tasks that involve using multiple user interfaces or a single user interface. When the user completes the task assigned to them, the researcher or moderator, or facilitator observes the participants’ behavior and asks for their feedback. However, even though another name for usability testing is user testing, it does not refer to testing the user. This post helps you understand what usability testing is and how it is performed.

Understanding Usability Testing and its Importance

What is Usability Testing?

Usability testing is a testing process for your application for checking how much a specific design is likable by a group of users. Usability testing generally includes observing your users’ behavior after assigning them some tasks to complete which can be related to different designs of your application’s interface. The usability test is not only done once but it is done from the early stage of the production environment until the application is launched on the market. During each stage of the production environment, the test facilitator creates different groups of users who have the task to observe, watch, listen, and take notes on the application’s behavior in different circumstances. The mission of the usability test is to find out any usability problems in the application and organize qualitative and quantitative data to identify the positive and negative feedback of the users based on their experience. To run a successful usability test, you have to create a usability test plan first and find or hire users as participants, and then you have to analyze the feedback of the participants and make changes to your application accordingly.

Why Do You Need Usability Testing?

The goals of usability testing or why you need usability testing for your application varies from one industry to another. But most of the time a usability test is conducted for the following reasons:

• To identify issues in the design or interface of the application.
• To identify more opportunities to improve the functions of your application.
• To learn about the target user’s behavior and choices.

Even though a professional user interface designer knows exactly what kind of interface you should have on your application, it is important to understand how your users are reacting to a certain design. That’s why we conduct usability testing on whether you are creating an application or service or a website, it is important. Depending on the type of service or application you are creating, there might be different kinds of usability tests that you can perform.

Elements of Usability Tests

There are many types of usability tests but the main elements of the test are the facilitator, the task, and the participants. When one participant performs their assignment, the facilitator will observe the participants’ behavior and wait for them to provide their feedback. The facilitators should also ask questions and graphic details about the application’s tasks from the participant.

1. The Facilitator

A facilitator or observer is the person who guides the users or participants in the usability test process. A facilitator gives instructions to the users or participants and answers their questions and also asks additional questions to learn about the test process. The position of a facilitator is to ensure that the test comes with valid data and high-quality outcomes without influencing the parties’ behavior.

2. Tasks

The tasks are some activities that the participants have to perform. These tasks can be specific or open-ended counting on the research questions and the kind of usability testing the facilitator is performing. The task instructions are presented to the participants by their facilitators verbally or in a written sheet.

3. Participants

The participants need to be users of the creation which is experimented with. This means the user might be already using the application or the facilitator needs to hire the user to use the application. Most of the time the participants who join in the usability testing process come from the target audience group. There is a think-aloud method in usability testing that the participant can use to narrate their thoughts about a particular task. The facilitator asks the user to use the readout loud method to understand their goals, motivations, and behaviors.

Once the main elements of the usability testing are ready, the facilitator can use qualitative or quantitative usability testing depending on the production environment.

Types of Usability Tests

Usability testing is of two types, one is qualitative and another is quantitative. Allow us to introduce both of them briefly.

1. Qualitative Usability Testing

Qualitative usability testing aims at gathering data regarding how the users use the development or service. This type of testing is mostly conducted to recognize concerns in the user’s environment. And this type of usability testing is also more popular than its counterpart.

2. Quantitative Usability Testing

This type of testing aims at gathering metrics or feedback from the users that describe their experience with the development or assistance. The most popular metrics that are accumulated in quantitative usability testing are the time of the task and the success of the task. This type of test is the best for gathering benchmarks.

The number of participants you need to hire for a usability test depends on the type of test you are conducting. A general qualitative usability test will require a single user. It would be better if you hire five participants to identify the most common hindrances in the application.

Benefits of Usability Testing

When you are performing usability testing on your application, you are experimenting with different designs and features. The ones that stand out will make your buyers delighted. You present your different design ideas and features and functions in front of the usability test participants, and you can apply the ideas that stand out to your application for its success. By knowing your users’ points of view, you can create better functions and interface designs for your product or service. Since users are the main motivation for your application, their perspectives will help you create the most suitable app design. Usability testing is also important for your customers’ success. The more perspectives of customers you have, the better chance you will get to create a better quality product. Here are the key advantages of conducting a usability test on your production environment:

• You are getting feedback from real people and your target audience in real-time which helps you create a better project.
• You can have internal debates about fixing an issue that appeared on your project and identify how the participants or the users react to the solutions.
• By conducting a usability test, you can also find out the real or potential problems that exist in your project and come up with solutions before launching the project in the market.
• By performing usability tests, you are also minimizing the risk of failure of the project.

However, you can only perform a successful usability test when you are not confusing it with the other kind of tests that look similar to usability tests.

Misconceptions About Usability Tests

A usability test is not necessarily about just collecting information or feedback about your product from the customers because that’s what we call market research. The market research gives you deep knowledge about the users’ behavior and motivation but when you are performing a usability test you can be sure that the testing process will give you ideas about what works out for your target audience and what doesn’t. The usability test allows your participants to perform several tasks to help you observe how they are interacting with your product’s interface. However, A/B testing, surveys, and focus groups do not qualify as usability testing. In A/B testing, you are testing different design variations to find out which will help you improve your application performance but the usability test revolves around investigating your users’ behavior.

Conclusion

As discussed above, you will have to perform usability testing at different stages of your project life cycle, and you can also implement the test in various ways. A usability test is the fastest way to make sure that your project is providing great user satisfaction because your users are the main component of your business. Serving your users right will help you succeed in your industry.