Five questions to conduct effective usability testing

Insights from conducting usability testing for 5 consecutive months

Photo by UX Indonesia on Unsplash

Last year I conducted usability testing for five consecutive months. I was involved in every aspect of planning and executing the tests — defining the study objective, writing the test plan, creating test scenarios, identifying appropriate metrics to measure usability, recruiting participants, moderating the user sessions, measuring and collecting data and taking notes. Although I went in with a firm understanding of conducting usability testing, it is one of those things where you can only learn so much by reading. Through these five months of immersive experience, I observed seasoned UX practitioners and learned through practice. And now, I am much more confident in my ability to spearhead usability testing projects.

This article summarizes my learnings in the following five questions that set the stage for planning and conducting effective usability tests.

1. What does usability mean for the product/feature you are about to test?

Five qualities of Usability by NNgroup: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-101-introduction-to-usability/

Before beginning anything, answer this question — What does usability mean for the product/feature you are about to test? Reflect on the five qualities of usability as defined by the NN group — Learnability, Efficiency, Memorability, Errors and Satisfaction. Which of these are relevant to the feature or product you are going to test? Not all of them apply to all products/features, and neither are they equally important. For example, if you are testing a social media or networking application, learnability and satisfaction might be the most critical parameters. In the case of a checkout and payment feature, error (low error rate and ease of recovery) might be the most important. Similarly, in the case of products used by professionals every day, efficiency might be of utmost importance.

Determining which qualities of usability are most important for a particular product or feature depends on various factors, such as the target audience, the product’s purpose, and the specific…