Introduction
What is Usability Testing?
Usability testing is an essential methodology used in website, product, or application testing. It allows the collection of various pieces of data, which can later be used to modify, improve, or optimize said website, product, or application.
Observing real-life users interacting with your product can give some critical insight into the possible errors of the product, Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your usability testing.
Tips
Tips to improve Usability Testing
Begin with a clear goal
Having a clear goal can save you from confusion and time.
Before any kind of usability testing, decide the goal of the testing is. What exactly are you aiming to measure with a usability test? Is it:
a. The time is taken to complete a task – say from opening a website or application to achieving the main goal.
b. Users’ ability to navigate through the website/application intuitively?
c. Finding out when a user gets stuck in the middle application or website.
Finding the right person
Finding the right person can be most helpful for rectify our issues and improve the UX of the product. When deciding who to target, keep a clear persona or a certain group of people in mind. The main rule of thumb here would be to find someone who has not tried your app before.
Having a landscape architect try out a cryptocurrency exchange application probably won’t bring many impactful insights. You’ll need someone with some level of expertise for a more specialized product.
Do not overload users with tasks
After selecting your focus group based on the prescribed demographic, limit the number of tasks you expect users to complete.
Give them clear instructions on what they are supposed to do, be available to answer questions, and allow them enough time to comprehend and complete the task.
Trying remote usability testing
As a global pandemic occurs remote usability testing can be easy and more possible than in-person usability testing.
Remote testing is done on the phone or over the internet. It is cheaper and more tests can be conducted when compared to in-person testing.
I prefer Marvel mobile application in my early stage of testing which is easy and handy.
Here are some of the tools which are useful and fantastic https://uxcam.com/blog/5-usability-testing-tools/
Use the feedback to improve the product and test again
Don’t try to solve everything at once, fix the most important problem first, and test again.
As usability testing is performed at regular intervals, continually incorporating the feedback received and improving the product will result in a more evolved, refined product that will require fewer iterations once it goes live.