What is usability testing?

Usability is a measure of how well users of a website, app, or product can interact with the interface to achieve a defined goal effectively and efficiently.

It’s a component of an overall user experience design and is vital for producing exceptional customer experiences.

Usability testing is testing the usability of the product or interface. Designers will get real people to interact with the website, app, or other product and observe their behaviours and reactions.

Designers will also observe the way users interact with the product and how they complete desired goals to determine whether the usability was designed effectively.

It takes only five users to identify 85% of problems in an interface, and the probability of encountering an error for each participant in a user test is 31%.

There are five main steps to follow for successful usability testing:

  1. Determine the goals of your usability testing session.

Identify the areas you want testers to focus on, the tasks you want them to complete, and the users you want to include. If you have multiple buyer personas, you can focus on a specific one that’s most relevant to the interface or run multiple sessions.

You also need to determine how you collect feedback and run the test sessions without influencing any user decisions.

  1. Recruit participants.

You can ask current customers to participate or recruit new users through an agency or your website and social media. Make sure your participants understand the scope and goals of the sessions.

  1. Design tasks for your participants to complete.

You want your participants to go through a series of tasks on the interface to observe their thought process on the interface and how easy it is to interact with its different features. Make sure your tasks don’t introduce bias or language that might influence the decisions of your participants.

  1. Run the usability testing sessions.

Each session should be the same for participants for consistency of data collecting. Gather information about the behaviours of your participants before they start testing so you can collect data about demographics. Take notes throughout the session.

  1. Analyze the data.

Based on the information you collected, identify the major red flags that should be prioritized and start implementing improvements.

If you need help with usability testing to ensure your website or app provides an excellent customer experience, contact us today.