Usability Testing
Usability Testing is really an important part of a project. Just like the name, what we test in this case is the usability of our application. We might think that the application that we develop is the greatest application that ever existed, but in reality, it’s not.
As we develop our application, we become very accustomed to it and we become less critical of it. We might miss details that are important for our users because those details are probably obvious to us but not to the users. This is why we need an outside view of the usability of our application so that we can get feedback and improve based on the feedback.
What is Usability Testing?
Usability testing is a way to see how easy to use something is by testing it with real users. Users are asked to complete tasks, typically while they are being observed by a researcher, to see where they encounter problems and experience confusion. If more people encounter similar problems, recommendations will be made to overcome these usability issues. — experienceux.co.uk
To put it simply, Usability Testing is a test to see the ease of use of your application by using real users under the surveillance of an observer where unbiased feedback will be given by the user.
Why Usability Testing?
Usability Testing helps identify problems in the design of your application. No matter how good you are at UX design, there’s always something that will be forgotten especially when you are really focused on a particular design where sometimes you will miss little details.
Through identifying problems, we can also discover ways to improve the current design. We can update the current design to something that is easier to use and suits our target audience’s needs. Furthermore, we can learn about our users’ behavior and preferences. So that we can adapt and optimize our application to fit the users’ behavior and preferences.
Types of Usability Testing
Qualitative
Qualitative Usability Testing focuses on collecting insights, findings, and anecdotes from the user. It’s best to use this type of test if you want to find problems in the user experience
Quantitative
Quantitative Usability Testing focuses on collecting metrics that can describe the user experience. The examples of metrics are the number of tasks succeded and the time taken in a task.
In-Person
In-Person testing means that usability testing is conducted where the facilitator and the participants are located in the same physical place. The facilitator will ask the participants to do the tasks, observe, take notes, and ask for feedback.
Remote
Remote testing means that the usability is conducted where the facilitator and the participants are not located in the same physical place. there are two ways to conduct remote testing, moderated and unmoderated. Moderated testing is similar to In-Person and the only difference is that to communicate, the facilitator and participants use screen-sharing software such as Zoom and Google Meet. in unmoderated testing, the facilitator gives written tasks to participants and let the participants to their task alone on their own time. Then the facilitator gives the participants follow up questions in some kind of medium like Google Form.
Steps to Conduct Usability Testing
There are many ways to conduct usability testing. Usability testing can be done in-person, where the facilitator will be physically in the same place as the user or it can also be done remotely where the facilitator is not in the same place as the user where the facilitator and the user utilize screen-sharing software such as Zoom and Google Meets. Due to the pandemic, our team decided to use remote testing using Zoom.
Pre-Usability Testing
Before we start usability testing we have to plan first, what tasks that are needed to be done by the user and most importantly choose the right test participants.
Defining Tasks
We have to create tasks for the participants to complete and define what we can evaluate from them. We have to make the scenario concise and brief so that the participants can understand what the scenario is and what they are supposed to do.
For easier planning, we use Google Sheets to define the tasks, scenarios, success indicators, assumptions, and so on. Furthermore, we added the participants' personal information such as age and their background.
Here is our task planning:
Choose the Right Test Participants
We have to choose the correct test participants for our usability testing because we intended to deliver our application to a target audience. If the application is intended for a particular audience, we have to find the participants from that particular audience as they reflect the real users and can give huge benefits in terms of feedback. For our group, the application that we make focuses on artwork display and auction. So the test participants that we choose are people that have an artistic background, art enthusiasts, and so on.
Usability Testing
After you plan the tasks that the user will complete and choose the right participants, now it’s the time to conduct the usability testing. We the facilitator, act as an observer. What we need to do is ask the participants to do the tasks that we already planned, observe, and take notes. Don’t interfere with what the participants are doing, let them do the tasks on their own, and only give instructions when they are really stuck and don’t know what to do. If the user can complete the tasks with little to no hiccups then we can probably say that we are on the green while if the user needs guidance then we know that something needs to be improved.
After the test is done, we can ask questions from the user to get their feedback on our application. This is useful as it’s essentially what we want from usability testing. Asks questions that will be beneficial to the development team and the designer so that they can improve the application and most importantly, be polite.
Here is an example of our question and answer:
Post-Usability Testing
After all the testing is done, then we can gather all of the data that we have already written, analyze them one-by-one and we can conclude everything in a final report. Make the report clean and easy to understand. Here is an example of our Final Report:
That is all from me! I hope you had a great time reading this article!
