Usability testing

Eiken Nurcelli
5 min readJul 11, 2022

Introduction

As part of my master thesis, the most important part from which I got so many recommendations were the Usability testing, with Think aloud method.

Usability testing is a simple and inexpensive way to get direct feedback from the people who use your product or site. It’s a specific kind of usability test that focuses on gathering data about how users interact with what you’re designing. The goal of this process is to identify areas where users struggle so that you can improve upon them before launching your product.

Usability testing attends to the ease of use and sense of the value of a product.

Usability testing is a method of testing product usability, which is defined as the ease of use and sense of the value of a product. The goal of usability testing is to determine whether users can perform tasks on your website or software application. To do this, you need to recruit users who match your target audience and ask them to perform certain tasks while you observe their behavior and record data such as time spent on task completion or system errors encountered.

The results from usability testing can be used to make changes that improve the overall user experience with your site or app — so it’s critical for success!

The number of participants in user testing is typically between five and ten.

User testing is a great way to find out if your design is usable, but there are many factors that affect how many people you should involve in your test. The number of participants in user testing is typically between five and ten. This depends on the task, type of product and the number of tasks to be tested.

The more complex the task or the more features or users are involved, then generally speaking you’ll need more participants in order to get an accurate representation of what happens when someone uses your product or website.

Usability tests are not interviews; you’re doing one-way communication with the user.

Usability testing is a one-way conversation. You’re not interviewing your test subject, you’re observing them use the product and asking them to think aloud as they do it.

In usability testing, you are always watching the user’s eye movements, even when they aren’t using your product. It’s important for you to know where their eyes are focused at all times so that you can anticipate what they’ll be looking at next and make sure that it’s clear and easy to find.

Usability tests are not focus groups. They don’t involve group discussion. It involves getting specific data from your test subject as they go through a task/activity on your website/product.

Usability tests are not focus groups. They don’t involve group discussion. It involves getting specific data from your test subject as they go through a task/activity on your website/product.

For example, if we’re testing an interactive map that shows how many places to eat around you, the usability tester might ask: “When I click on this icon, what do you expect it to do? Is it telling me about restaurants nearby or showing me directions?” At the same time, the tester will observe their behavior and note key areas of friction (or lack thereof).

The results aren’t simply qualitative — they’re quantitative too!

You’re trying to identify where users have problems using the product by asking each participant to complete certain tasks while you watch them work.

You should also be prepared to ask users to do a think-aloud, which is when you ask them to tell you what they are thinking as they are completing a task. Or you can have your participants record their thoughts while working with the product.

You might also consider asking participants to complete a post-test survey after they have used the product (or even before). This will help you understand how satisfied they were with your product, and how they think it can be improved.

Usability tests provide specific information about what people do. At the same time, they use a product as well as what they say they’re doing, which is important to know because people aren’t always conscious of their actions.

Usability tests are specific, controlled experiments conducted with real people to evaluate a product’s usability. A test usually involves a small number of users who are asked to perform certain tasks while they interact with the product. Afterward, the evaluator asks them to complete a short questionnaire that aims at capturing their experience.

Usability tests provide specific information about what people do. At the same time, they use a product as well as what they say they’re doing, which is important to know because people aren’t always conscious of their actions.

Conclusion

Usability testing is a necessary part of the development process, but it should not be the only one. Good product design and development involves both usability testing and user research. By conducting usability tests on your website or product, you’ll gain insight into how users interact with the site or app. This will help identify areas where improvements can be made — whether it’s making an interface easier to understand or adding features that users have been asking for. Usability tests also serve as good indicators of where users are having trouble with your site/app, these issues can then be addressed before they become big problems in later stages of development!

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