How UX Design Agency Conducts Usability Testing

Usability testing is a non-negotiable of the user-centred design approach. It helps designers understand how users interact with the product and identify areas for improvement.

In this article, you will get to know what usability testing is, the types of usability testing and how a UX design agency conducts usability testing. Let’s get started.

What is Usability Testing?

Usability testing means testing your design with real users in real scenarios. It helps you discover usability issues and understand user concerns.

Usability testing ensures that your design works for your users. It’s important to remember that usability testing is not about what you want your design to be but rather about what your users want it to be. Your goal should be to create a design that is easy to use for your target audience.

Now that you have understood what is usability testing, let’s know about 4 different types of usability testing.

Types of Usability Testing:

1. Explorative Usability Testing

Exploratory testing helps examine what works and what doesn’t in a concept or service even before it is fully developed, saving them money and resources if something goes wrong.

In this type of testing, task-based scenarios and open-ended questions are utilised to monitor and acquire information from users.

2. Comparative Usability Testing

Comparative testing is the most effective way of comparing two dissimilar materials. This type of category can include concepts, completely finished designs or even design components.

Preference, efficiency, effectiveness, and customer satisfaction are just a few of the outcomes that can be obtained using this method.

3. Assessment Usability Testing

A summative test, also known as an assessment, can be used to analyse the usefulness of a digital product or service.

Assessment testing, like other types of usability testing, can be performed early in a product’s development cycle.

4. Validation Usability Testing

Validation usability testing, in contrast to other types of usability testing, is primarily focused on obtaining numerical findings.

Development teams commonly want statistics such as the percentage of tasks completed and the time it takes to perform a task.

Steps followed by UX Design Agency for Usability Testing

1. Determine Your Test Goals

Before we start, we determine the outcome of your usability testing. We make sure to choose a representative group of users and be absolutely clear about the user flows or modules to test. Along with that, we have clarity about the metrics to measure too.

2. Identify The Problem

We define the main problem that a product solves and any other issues that may come up during the testing session. We then list out tasks that we want the participants to complete.

3. Recruit Your Test Subjects

We normally prefer to recruit test participants through social media, online forums, or in-person recruiting. If we are conducting usability testing in any country that has age restrictions or rules, we make sure to sign a consent form with participants below 18 years of age.

4. Create A Test Outline

We prefer to write a script for your usability testing session. This helps us to stay on track and understand which problems and functionalities we are testing. Also, we ensure the environment is conducive to testing, with minimal distractions.

5. Conduct Your Tests

Here, we get to the execution part. Depending upon the method, we observe test subjects, take notes, and ask follow-up questions. We make sure to pay attention to both the positive and negative aspects of the user experience.

6. Analyze Your Results

Once the usability test is complete, we analyze the results. We look for patterns and trends in the data to identify areas for improvement.

Conclusion

You can follow these steps too, and we guarantee that your usability testing will be practical and informative. Conducting usability testing this way can help you improve your UX design and create a better user experience.

If you have a product, a web or mobile application and you are facing issues such as high churn rate, less NPS and CSAT, then maybe its time to do usability testing. We, at Octet Design Studio, offer usability testing services, which will help you fix usability problems and make your product or app highly user-friendly.

Content Source: https://octet.design