Quality Assurance, UX Research: Usability Testing and Evaluation
Hello everyone, in this blog post, I would like to share with you my understanding of usability testing and evaluation. Also, I would like to share with you how I implemented it in the software engineering project.
What is Usability Testing?
Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. It is more concerned with the design intuitiveness of the product and tested with users who have no prior exposure to it. Users are asked to complete a set of tasks, typically while they are being observed by a researcher, to see where they experience problems and confusion. If there are more people encounter similar problems, recommendations will be made to overcome these usability issues.
Usability Evaluation
Usability evaluation introduces users to the new design to ensure it is intuitive to use and provides a positive user experience. The purpose of usability evaluation is to ensure any potential issues are highlighted and fixed before the product is launched.
Advantages of Usability Testing
- Getting feedback directly from the target audience.
- Internal debates can be resolved by testing the issue to see how users react to different options being discussed.
- Issues and potential problems are highlighted before the product is launched.
Disadvantages of Usability Testing
- The testing is not 100% representative of the real-life scenario.
- It does not provide large samples of feedback.
How I implemented it in the Software Engineering Project
I have conducted usability testing with the prototype that was given by RubyH. I have conducted it with one person, for now.
Designing Scenario for Usability Testing
Result of the Usability Testing
Kevin has never used an application similar to Moodah. He does not have any problem with using the payment, validate, and next order feature. However, he has some comments on the design of the user interface in the first page. The search bar needs to be at the top. On the second page, copywriting should be clearer.
Conclusion
I think usability testing is very useful to test whether the application satisfies the user’s needs and expectations.
Thank you for reading :)
