9 Tips for Usability Testing During the Design Process
The best way to discover how well your product works is to watch real people interacting with it. At Common Good usability testing is an invaluable part of our design process that helps us to improve and refine the user experience we’re working on. Recently we’ve started to broaden our testing into the realm of physical products as well as digital interfaces.
In this post we’ll share our top tips to help anyone who’s thinking of including usability testing in their next project.
Tip # 1- Test early and often
It’s never a bad time to test, but ironing out issues at the start of a project is much easier than discovering fundamental flaws towards the end when a lot of time and money has been invested in development. Ideally test your product at various stages of fidelity over the course of the design process, from early concepts in the form of paper prototypes, through to interactive wireframes and high fidelity mock ups. If time and budget is tight and you can only test once aim for somewhere in the middle such as an interactive wireframe.
Tip # 2 — Find the right participants
It’s important to test with people who represent the users of your product. For example if you have a product for teenagers and you end up testing it with adults you’re not going to get true insights. Aim to recruit around 6 participants in total, at least 5 participants for each round of usability testing with one extra to account for potential no shows.
Remember lab style recruitment isn’t always necessary, your customers may be right in front of you in a showroom, a store, or an industry event you could take your prototype to.
Tip # 3 — Plan to quantify your results
Simply asking if people like your product isn’t enough to effectively measure it’s success. So in addition to task based observation, plan to quantify your results and facilitate further discussion with your test participants. Here are a few easy ways to do this;
Score — Ask each person to rate their overall satisfaction with your product on a scale from very dissatisfied to very satisfied, and ask them to explain why they chose that option.
Brand words — Ask participants to chose the five words they would use to best describe their experience from a selection of positive and negative brand words. This will measure if your product reflects the values of your brand.
Task efficiency — Time how long it takes users to complete a task.
Tip # 4 — Prep, prep, prep…
Watching people using your prototype may seem pretty easy right… but preparation is key to keep the session focused and to make sure you and your team get the answers you need. Start by setting clear objectives to outline what you want to find out and plan your tasks to meet those goals. I always write a script that outlines what I’m going to say, but I never read it word for word in the session allowing flexibility to go off script if something interesting arises.
Tip # 5 — Make every participant feel comfortable
Strangers watching your every move can be a nerve racking experience for the test participant. A good introduction is super important to set expectations and put the participant at ease. Let them know that you’re testing the prototype and most importantly — not them — so there are no right or wrong answers, and encourage them to be honest and openly critical. I often tell participants that I’ve not been involved in the design process (even if I have) so that they don’t feel like I’ll be offended by any negative feedback. Before jumping into the main tasks it helps to ask some easy opening questions such as ‘How often do you shop online?’ to get the participant comfortable with talking.
Tip # 6 — Shut up and let the user do the talking
It’s human nature to want to fill any awkward silences, but fight the urge to do this yourself instead allow the participant to fill the silence and expand on their thoughts. This will uncover much deeper insight than if you move on after their first answer. Silence is golden.
Tip # 7- Get the team and client to observe
The thought of people observing may seem a bit daunting but the time it will save you is most definitely worth it. Your core team witnessing user struggles and feedback first hand is invaluable and means you can spend less time explaining findings and writing up lengthy reports and more time focusing on solving the problems with your team.
Limit the number of people in the main test room to three (including the participant) so make sure observation is set up in a different room (ideally with a whiteboard for sketching ideas) or record and playback later if you’re doing in the field guerrilla testing.
Tip # 8 — Testing can be fast and inexpensive
There’s a common misconception that usability testing is expensive and will slow a project down which often leads to it being cut out of the process due to time and budget. At Common Good we work in fast paced design sprints where we limit the time we have between rounds of testing (usually 1 or 2 days) which forces us to work fast to rapidly iterate, reducing costs. Testing doesn’t have to be slow and expensive if you plan it right. Step out of your comfort zone and minimise the time you think you actually need, you’ll be surprised.
Tip # 9 — Be prepared to fail
Our last tip but probably the most important of all is to embrace failure. Try not to be too precious over your design and remember that negative feedback is actually more valuable than positive feedback as it helps you improve your product and create the best possible user experience for it.
We’d love to hear how you get on and if you have any tips of your own to add
