USABILITY TESTING. IT’S A PROCESS!
UXDI project report
What is a usability test and why do need to do it? Simple. To assure that the user’s problems have successfully been solved in the easiest and simplest way possible, in the eye of the user. It all starts with screening many people to find our target users. Once we find 5 people, or even a couple more, we write an interview script and set up appointments to meet with these users, so we can interview them to find out as much as we can about their experience with the specific product or situation at hand. This is where things get more interesting because as we analyze these interviews, we tend to find numerous trends, such as how often they use the product, when and why they use it. We also discover things that they like and don’t like about the product and even things they would like to see changed about it, without actually asking them those questions directly.
After synthesizing our findings, we are ready to move on to creating a prototype and start our usability tests! Typically we reach back out to the same 5 people we interviewed and request that they test out our prototype. This is actually one of my favorite things to do since I love seeing my designs in the hands of people who would actually use it. We let the users know that we are testing the app/prototype and NOT THEM! They can never be wrong! Though I felt that my design was easy to navigate, I am not the user who I am building the product for! We all think differently. As I hand my prototype over for each test drive, I give each user the same 3 tasks. If this were a navigation or public transportation app I would ask them find a route to get from point A to point B, check to see if the train is running on time, and find out if there have been any service delay updates. The first round of usability tests is where you will find out where users are having the most difficulty, and why. Now we go back and revise our designs, then go back out, find 5 new test users and try the app out again. We can do this over and over until we see the users easily achieving their goals and enjoying doing it!
Is it a long process? Sure, but it absolutely necessary and helps us figure out what issues need to be addressed and how to do it efficiently so we can give our users an enjoyable experience while using our final product.