Jeff Bezos invested 100 times more in user experience than advertising during the first year of Amazon.1 McAfee saved over 90% in support costs after integrating usability testing to learn more about the customer’s needs.2 This goes to show just how fundamental usability testing is to the product development process and yet only 55% of companies conduct them. So let’s dive deeper and understand how it works.
What and Why of Usability Testing
Usability testing is exactly what it sounds like. It is a research method that helps you find out what are the pain points of your users regarding your software’s user experience. It also allows you to identify opportunities to tap into and get a deeper insight into what the customers want and expect.
What does usability testing look like? Let’s suppose you want to see how impactful your landing page is, you can conduct a five second test, where the participant is shown the page for five seconds and later asked to recall what they saw. Or maybe you’re trying to ensure that your website navigation menu is not confusing, in which case, you could conduct a first click test.
But is it really necessary? We’ll let the numbers speak for themselves.
- Research suggests good user experience improve employee productivity by 161%
- Boost software’s functionality performance by 202%
- 52% of users are less likely to engage with a company that doesn’t use responsive mobile design
- 70% users will abandon their purchase if the user experience is not good.
- 79% of people are more likely to revisit and share a mobile site if it’s easy to use.
Usability testing is not an optional but rather a necessary step during the product development process. It helps you create a more user friendly design, which in turn, helps you save money and retain your users.
When should you perform usability testing?
Depending on how complex your software is and what your goals are, the answer may vary. It is generally a good idea to test your software at prototyping and when it has reached the MVP stage. Running tests earlier in the process helps to ensure that the development is on the right track and helps you avoid major changes down the line. It’s also a great idea to keep testing regularly once the product has hit the markets and keep making improvements in the design.
How to find the right audience?
You need to make sure that the participants in the test are not different from the demographic that is going to end up actually using your product. There are a few ways you can go about finding the right participants for testing.
Sample Group from your already existing user base
If you already have an existing user base, you can test a small sample group from your already existing users. This can become the most accurate representation of your target audience.
What is the right sample size of audience?
It depends on the type of tests you are conducting, if the tests are straightforward then a sample size of 5 is more than enough. But if the tests are multifaceted then ideally sample size should be around 25-30 people.
Recruit from Participant Panel
The other option is to recruit from participant panels. These are people who have signed up for testing on online portals and are usually people who have tested multiple times before.
Approach a Company
Alternatively, you can hire a company who’ll help you hire participants. Besides, they could help you handle the entire testing process right from planning the tests to analysing the results.
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Methods of Usability Testing
Based on how the testing process is conducted, there are several ways to categorise them: moderated or unmoderated, in-person or remote, comparative or explorative. Let’s take a look at what these words mean.
In Person Testing
In a moderated test, the researcher or the moderator supervises the participant as they perform the task given to them. During the test, the moderator may remain silent and simply observe the behaviour of the participant, ask them to think out loud while performing the tasks, or ask them probing open ended questions. This method is generally considered as the most helpful as it can give you a detailed insight. However, it also costs much more.
Remote Testing
Remote Testing occurs either in a moderated setup or an unmoderated one. As you’d expect, a moderated setup is quite similar to the in-person one, where the moderator briefs the participant about the task over a video call and observes them while they complete the task.
However, in an unmoderated setup, participants are sent the task through a specialised software and they complete it at their own convenient time while the screen is recorded. They also need to speak out loud about their actions while they conduct the test. There may also be additional forms asking them certain questions that they have to fill after taking the test. The researcher may later look at the recording and draw conclusions based on it.
Guerrilla Testing
Instead of gathering a group of participants that are similar to your target demographic, guerrilla testing occurs by approaching random people in a public setting and asking them to complete a quick task. This gives you insights into a much wider range of demographics.
How to conduct usability testing?
Planning
The process begins with planning what your test is going to look like. You can start by answering some basic questions to get a clearer picture and then later draw a detailed plan based on your answers. These questions may look something like:
- What questions are you seeking to answer?
- What methods are you going to use?
- What target audience are you going to choose?
- What tasks are you going to assign to the participants?
- What success criteria will you consider?
Conducting the Test
The test will typically begin by briefing the participant about the tasks they are supposed to do and also answering any questions they may have. If it’s an unmoderated session, the briefing happens through the written word. It’s important to ensure that the instructions provided are very clear and also address any questions that may arise.
Before beginning, you need to make sure the participants feel comfortable and ensure that all the necessities such as the internet connection, signing of consent and NDAs are taken care of. Then comes the actual testing part.
During a moderated test, the moderator must be observant and take detailed notes while remaining unobtrusive. They may observe the body language, read facial expressions, ask the participant to think out loud or even ask probing questions to get deeper insight. In an unmoderated test, there may be an opinion form to fill up at the end of testing.
Once the testing is done, next comes the debriefing. This is when you may ask the participants for feedback regarding the testing process itself. You may ask them if there’s anything else they’d like to add. Also, if there was any incentive offered, debriefing is when the participants would generally receive it.
Tools to Conduct Usability Testing
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
During a moderated session, the moderator must be very careful to not influence the behaviour of the user, guide their actions, or induce any bias into them or guide their actions by way of verbal communication or body language or induce any bias into them.
During unmoderated sessions, it’s also important to look out for participants who may not be completely honest. They may not complete the task properly or may not be 100% honest while submitting it back. To avoid this you can overhire. Let’s say you get 6 people instead of 5. This can help you identify a general pattern more easily and come to a conclusion.
Other mistakes to look out for:
- Avoid being too specific or too open ended
- Not setting the appropriate tasks
- Not recruiting the right participants
- Using jargon while communicating with participants
How to evaluate the results of the test?
Let’s assume you have given the following instructions in the Usability test of an ecommerce website.
- Open Amazon.com
- Search for white long sleeve shirt
- Select size 40 & add to cart
Let’s have one more test define – Place an order of the white shirt via upi
- Go to cart
- Add all required details
- Select UPI as mode of payment
- Complete transaction
If these are the sample tests, what should be the results of this evaluation?
There are certain metrics you can use for the evaluation of usability test results. Depending on what your goal is, you may choose to evaluate using a different combination of these metrics. Some of the commonly used metrics are:
- Completion Rate
- Task Success Rate
- Time to Completion
- Error Rate
- User Opinions
Based on this usability test results product teams can create hypotheses around a particular topic. They can run this hypothesis driven development sprint and create an informed roadmap on test results.
Conclusion
Usability Testing is a necessary step in the product development process with a lot of variables to take care of. It requires attention to detail at every step of the process because the tiniest of errors could lead to distorted and skewed results which won’t be helpful. Some of the key things to ensure is that you have a specific goal, you hire the right participants and you assign the right tasks. When conducted correctly, it can help you save a lot down the line.
Sources
https://www.lyssna.com/guides/usability-testing-guide/usability-test-plan/
https://www.linearity.io/blog/ux-statistics/
htpps://divami.com/blogs/saas-remote-user-research-a-modern-shift-to-ux-methodology/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-testing-101/
