Usability Testing

Setting up user goals, splitting them into tasks and creating a script

Building a product is usually a joint effort of very different people in a team, with different skills and backgrounds. In this way, the design and mechanics implemented to accomplish the primary value propositions of a product are developed with inherent subjectivity.

Moreover, when you and your team discuss the usability of your own product, your opinions are typically influenced by the degree of expertise and the preconceived ideas and knowledge you already have on the matter. Solution?

Usability testing with your target audience might help you to objectively test the effectiveness of the design developed.

Usually, you’ll ask your target audience to use parts or features of your product/service in order to ascertain a design’s effectiveness. Typically, participants are asked to complete a series of tasks, with the results of those tasks analyzed to understand where and why problems occur.

In this small guide we’ll give some hints on how to create a script to conduct your usability tests:

1. Defining User Goals;
2. Splitting Goals into Tasks;
3. Creating the Script;

This will help you maximize the value and knowledge you can extract during a usability test.

Defining User Goals

Why do users go to your platform? User goals are what they expect to accomplish when they use your product or service. They are usually broad and don’t include step-by-step tasks.

For instance, a user goal for Gmail might be to send a pdf document to a specific person on their contact list.

Splitting Goals into Tasks

Now that you selected one or more user goals on your platform, it’s useful to break it down into tasks. The purpose is not to tell the users how to use your platform, because that would ruin the purpose of the usability test, but to help the person that is guiding the test to do it effectively.

Usually there is an ideal path to accomplish a goal, and the tasks are essentially the step-by-step directions users take to achieve their expectations. For instance, in the Gmail example above the tasks could be:

1. Login
2. Click on the Compose button
3. Upload the pdf document and add the recipient
4. Click on the Send button

It is important to note that usually there are alternative paths to achieve the same goal. For the example above, an alternative path could be:

1. Login
2. Go to Contacts and click on the desired recipient
3. Upload the pdf document
4. Click on the Send button

So it will be useful if you keep track of the path your user decides to take, and to be prepared to ask questions as they go through the tasks.

Creating the Script

Now that you sequenced the tasks users can take to accomplish a goal, you’re ready to create a script. You begin by introducing the test and setting some ground rules. An example introduction might be:

Hi _____, thank you again for taking the time to participate in this study. Before we begin, I’m going to give you a brief overview of the test and how it will work.
This session is pretty straightforward — I’ll be giving you a broad task to complete and then asking questions as we go along. Before I tell you the task, I’ll be giving you a little bit of context behind it, such as why you might be doing it and what you hope to achieve.
It’s really important to know that we are only testing the site, not you. You can’t do or say anything wrong here. Please feel free to let me know at any time if there’s something you like, dislike, if you’re confused, etc. I promise you won’t hurt my feelings.
Also, I’d like you to “think aloud” as much as possible. By that, I mean that I’d like you to speak your thoughts as often as you can. For example, you may be looking at a page, suddenly see something you didn’t see before and want to click on it. In that case, saying something like “this caught my eye so I’m going to see what it is” would be very useful.
If at any point you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Do you have any questions so far?
Ok, Let’s get started.

Now, you want to create the environment for the test. Usually you should create a background story on specific goals and why they might have them. It makes the process of going through the tasks easier and more natural for the user. Again, for the Gmail example the story could be:

“You’re the CEO of company X, and you promised to send an updated pitch of your Startup in pdf format to your first investor, mr. Y as soon as possible”

Then, guide the users through the tasks using this technique. Make the questions you need in each task or set of tasks to gather useful feedback on your product and why that particular user is behaving in that way.

Feel free to contact us for any additional guidance you might need.

This article was inspired on the following resources:
Article:
brad dalrymple’s First-Time Usability (https://medium.com/user-research/first-time-usability)

Books:
Steve Krug — Don’t Make Me Think;
Tom Tullis & Bill Albert — Measuring The User Experience.