Usability Testing

What is usability testing?

It is an evaluation of your website or desktop software. The evaluation is based on observing how representative users do representative tasks using your website or desktop software. For example, what are the issues in finding the suitable iPhone accessories, and in completing the checkout process?

Usability testing is a qualitative research method. Usually five participants per user profile would be sufficient. Each participant will take part in a one-on-one test session.

Why do you need to do usability testing?

We would like to use an analogy to explain the need. Let’s say you will host a party for some children. You want to bake some very delicious pudding to impress them. What would you do? You would probably make a few rounds of pudding to reach the sweetness and texture that you think the children like. Is that enough? You should probably ask some children to give you feedback as well. “The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.”

What can be tested?

From low-fidelity prototypes to products in production:

  • Low-fidelity prototypes – Evaluate users’ expectation on workflows and page content, their attitudes towards certain design elements (e.g., willingness in submitting date of birth), etc.
  • Products in production – Evaluate users’ ability in finding suitable features, understanding on content and feedback, completing appropriate forms efficiently, etc.

What is the process?

  1. Find out more about what your team would like to test, e.g., performance metrics, target users, selling points, enhancement plans, IT and other constraints.
  2. Discuss with your team the appropriate user profiles, tasks for evaluation and test schedules, etc.
  3. Recruit participants that fit the user profiles. Prepare test session guide which includes the tasks for evaluation
  4. Conduct the one-on-one test sessions.
  5. Proceed to analyze the test data.
  6. Submit the usability report and arrange the presentation.

What will you get?

  • Usability test report:
    • Usability issues of your website or desktop software from observing how the participants attempted to complete the tasks
    • Actionable design recommendations to ease the usability issues
    • Wireframes to illustrate the recommendations, if applicable
  • Presentation:
    • We will provide a presentation to highlight the major usability issues and recommendations.
  • Post-test consultation:
    • After submitting the report, we will provide five hours of consultation by phone or email.