1. Usability Testing

2. Usability Testing
Usability testing can reveal many things that you weren’t anticipating and things that the web team were arguing about may never come into play because the user doesn’t understand the value of the site.
Usability testing should be done at the end of the development process. Often and early.

3. Focus groups are not usability tests
Focus group testing is usually a request of the marketing department. If the marketing dept. feels like the site is going in the wrong direction they may request some last minute focus group testing.
“Usability tests are about watching people actually try to use what we’re building, so we can detect and fix the parts that confuse or frustrate them.
Focus groups are about having people talk about things, like their opinions about our products, their past experiences with them, or their reactions to new ideas that we show them.
So the main difference is that in usability tests, you watch people actually use things, instead of just talk about them.”

4. Focus Group:
small group of people (usually 5-10) sit around a table and talk about things.
Focus groups are good for
determining what your audience wants, needs and likes in the abstract.
They are good for testing whether the idea behind your site makes sense and your value proposition is attractive, to learn more about how people currently solve the problems your site will help them with and to find out how they feel about you and your competitors.
They are NOT Good for learning whether your site works and how to improve it.

5. Usability Testing:
are about watching one person at a time try to use something
If you want a great site, you’ve got to test
Testing reminds you that not everyone thinks the way you do, knows what you know and uses the Web the way you do.
Testing one user is 100 percent better than testing none.
Testing always works and even the worst test with the wrong user will show you important things you can do to improve your site.
You can view a usability
Testing one user early in the project is better than testing 50 near the end

6. Do it yourself usability testing

7. How often should you test?
One morning a month. Why?
It keeps it simple so you’ll keep doing it.
It gives you what you need
If frees you from deciding when to test
It makes it more likely that people will attend

8. How many users do you need?
Ideal for each round would be 3
The purpose of this kid of testing isn’t to prove anything.
You give them tasks to do, you observe and you learn.
You don’t need to find all of the problems:

9. How do you choose the participants?
It is good to do your testing with participants who are like the people who will use your site.
But for many sites you can do a lot of the testing with almost anybody
Recruiting people who fit a narrow profile usually takes more work and more money

10. Recruit loosely and grade on a curve
Try to find users who reflect your audience but don’t get hung up about it
Loosen up requirements and then make allowances for the differences between your participants and your audience.
When someone has a problem, ask yourself “would our users have that problem?”

11. Designing only for your target audience
Not a good idea to design a site so that only your target audience can use it. Some people in your “target audience” may be novices and not understand some of the terminology
We’re all beginners under the skin
Experts are rarely insulted by something that is clear enough for beginners.
Everybody appreciates clarity.

12. How do you find participants?
Users groups, trade shows, facebook, craigslist, twitter, customer forums, a pop up on your site, or even asking friends and neighbors.
There are resources out there to help you if you are doing your own recruiting such as Neilsen Norman Group’s How to Recruit Participants for Usability Studies.
Typical participant incentive run from $50-$100 for average Web users to several hundred dollars for busy, highly paid professionals.

13. Where do you test? What you need
Quiet space with table desk and two chairs.
Computer with internet access, mouse, keyboard and microphone
Screen sharing software
Screen recording software
Script

14. Who should do the testing
the person who sits with the participant and leads them through the test is called the facilitator.
Anyone can facilitate the tests.
You need to keep the participant comfortable and focused on doing the tasks,
The facilitator’s main job is to encourage them to think out loud as much as possible.

15. Who should observe? As many people as possible
You will need an observation room for the observers to watch from the screen sharing software. A large projector is good so that everyone can easily see and hear.
Observers will need to write down the three most serious usability problems they notices during that session so they can share them at the debriefing.

16. What do you test, and when do you test it?
It’s never too early to test.
Even before you begin designing it’s a good idea to test competitive sites.
They may be actual competitors or just site that have the same style, organization or features.
Bring in 3 participants and watch them try to do some typical tasks on one or two competitive sites.

17. How do you choose the tasks to test?
Start by making a list of the tasks people need to be able to do with whatever you’re testing.
Choose enough tasks to fill the allotted time
Then word each task carefully, so the participants will understand exactly what you want them to do.

18. Login Process Shopping Create Account
Log in using an existing username and password
retrieve a forgotten password
change answer to security testing
Shopping
searching an item
browsing an item
filtering item
selecting the item size, color etc
adding item to the cart
accessing the cart
returning to shopping

19. What happens during the test?
Welcome
The questions
The home page tour
The Tasks
Probing
Wrapping Up – thank them for their help, pay them and show them out.

20. Typical Problems
Users are unclear on the concept – they just don’t get it.
The words they’re looking for aren’t there – that either means you failed to anticipate what they were looking for or the words you are using to describe them aren’t words they would use
There’s too much going on – they just aren’t seeing what they are looking for because there is too much going on.

21. The Debriefing – Focus on fixing the most serious problems first
Make a collective list.
Choose the ten most serious problems
Rate them
Create an ordered list

22. Deciding what to fix Keep a separate list of low-hanging fruit.
Resist the impulse to add things.
Take “new feature” requests with a grain of salt.
Ignore “kayak” problems.

23. The Five Plausible Reasons for Not Testing Web Sites
We don’t have the time
We don’t have the money
We don’t have the expertise
We don’t have the usability lab
We wouldn’t know how to interpret the results