Usability Testing DEEP DIVE — UX Masterclass (Part 1) | Free Notion Template

Alicja Suska

Published in

Bootcamp

7 min readMay 4, 2023

Plan your usability test with this 💰 free Notion template.

Welcome to Usability Testing Deep Dive! We will prepare for and conduct usability testing in three simple steps:

#1: Plan
#2: Perform
#3: Summarize.

Today, we will focus on Step 1: Plan.

Usability testing is the process of evaluating a product or service by testing it with representative users. It can provide us with insights about the already implemented solutions and, more importantly, about designs and prototypes.

It saves a lot of time and resources to detect issues before the implementation occurs.

Even though usability testing may seem time-consuming, performing it and fixing the issues early is always less expensive 🤑 than implementing a wrong solution, releasing it, and correcting it later.

✍️ Step #1: Plan

The planning stage is essential for usability testing since it sets the foundation for the entire process. It guides you and your team through it and ensures you have everything prepared.

In this stage, we will:

Create the hypothesis and set goals, and non-goals for the test
Define the target audience and the characteristic of the participants
Write a test scenario
Create a prototype or prepare a product path we want participants to follow.

To keep the whole plan in one place, we need to create a document that contains all the information we need. I’ve created a usability testing plan template I will fill out with you today step-by-step. You can use it for your future usability tests.

in the description to follow along and use it for your future usability tests.

Also, we will need a product to plan a usability test for. Since we’re already using Notion for the research template, let’s stay here and use Notion AI as an example.

It’s a new Notion feature that helps you write better content, summarise, change the tone, translate, etc. It’s accessible via a command palette (show the interface).

👉 Background

The first section of the Usability Test Plan is Background. Here you need to provide context about the usability test. Describe the scope briefly, which product areas are included, and, in general, why you’ve decided to perform the test.

🎯 Objectives

In this section, we need to determine the objectives (goals) for the test. You need to define what you want to achieve through the testing. You may want to identify usability issues, evaluate user satisfaction, or measure task completion time. If there are any parts of the flow that you want to pay special attention to, list them here as well.

❌ Out-of-scope

Here we define the ‘non-goals’. What this research is not meant to achieve.

🧐 Research questions

We need to state what specific questions we want to answer with this research. Important: those are not yet the questions we want to ask the testers.

Students usually ask about the difference between the research objectives and research questions.

Objectives that we defined a moment ago are high-level goals. Research questions are more granular questions that support those goals.

🛠 Methodology & tools

How are you going to perform the research? Will it be moderated or unmoderated? In-person or remote? In addition, consider the tools you’ll need.

👯‍♂️ Participants

Identify the characteristics of the users who will be testing the product that align with your target audience.

Focus on behavioral characteristics, their experience, and key attributes important specifically for this research.

Remember to include the number of participants you’re planning to test with.

🤑 Compensation

Specify if the participants will be compensated and, if so, how (for example, cash, gift cards, gadgets, etc.).

Compensation depends on your company’s budget and the niche you’re working with.

It’s important to include it in the research plan since you’ll need to engage the stakeholders who sign off on the budget.

🗓 Schedule

When are you planning to start the outreach and perform the research? Include exact dates.

💪 Tasks

The next step in the planning stage is to develop a test plan. You need to determine the tasks that the users will be performing during the testing.

I would like to split the test in two parts:

#1: Testers will be working with a blank slate to generate and edit a blog post
#2: They will be manipulating a prepared document to summarise and extract data

It will give us a full picture of their behavior with the two most popular use cases.

🏗 Prototype or product path

Here you will attach a link to the prototype you plan to use or a screen recording of the path in the product you’d like people to go through. It helps reviewers visualize the scope and steps of the test. 💡 Pro tip:

Create prototype and scenario in parallel. It’s easier to write the prompts as you go through the prototype screens. You’ll avoid making mistakes or forgetting about transitions between the steps.

✍️ Script

Write down exactly what you will say during the meeting: from the introduction, through task prompts, follow-up questions, up to the wrap-up.

💡Pro tip: When you’re ready with both the prototype and the script…

First, go through it step-by-step by yourself to make sure that you didn’t forget anything.
Second, rehearse with your colleague. Mimique everything as if it was a real call — use Zoom, share the screen, record the meeting, and go through all the tasks.

Introduction

Explain what the usability test is and what’s the plan for this meeting. You need to ask for permission to record the session and let them know that

it’s a test of the product, not their skills as a user.

Warmup

Ask general questions about the participants to understand the context and make them feel comfortable with the interview formula.

Tasks

Guide them through the tasks you’ve prepared. Encourage them to comment and think out loud.

Wrap up

Thank the tester for their time and ask if they have any thoughts they didn’t have a chance to share yet. Close the session and ask if you can contact them again.

Final thoughts

In this article, we’ve covered the essential steps to plan a successful usability test. Remember that planning is crucial since it sets the foundation for the entire process.