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What is Usability Testing?

A way of testing your design out with real users, long before you build it (using early prototypes). With user testing you get to see what works and what doesn't, and what your customers think of it, without the expense of building the product first. This includes web site testing, lab testing and mobile testing.

Why you need it

Without either usability evaluation or usability testing, you may be building a product that contains major usability flaws - and the cost of correcting these later can be up to 200 times as much.

What we do

We ask your users to work with your product as if they were using it in the real world. In a controlled lab environment we can analyse their behaviour within the interface, providing much more accurate results than market research - what they tell you is not always what they do. We then analyse the video, audio and logged comments and produce an in-depth report of findings, which we present back to you. You can also see more images of our usability lab.

We can test in many different ways, but four primary forms of usability test are:

• Issue testing. This is the most common form of testing, where we are looking for the usability flaws in the design.
• Goal-based testing. The objectives of your organisation and of the users are identified and then measured during testing to see how well they are achieved.
• Money on the table testing. For e-commerce sites 'perfect' environments are set up - people who want products that are in stock, and have the money to buy them. We know how much they intend to spend, and measure how much they actually do. As all other factors are removed, any shortfall is down to usability issues. Factored up this can tell you how much your shop is losing every day due to poor usability.
• Value testing. Current product/site users are tested first to see where they find the real benefits and values. Then new users are tested, to see how well those benefits and values are communicated within the site. If new visitors don't see the benefits, they won't stay.

In detail

Firstly we meet with your team to define what type of testing you require and how the testing should take place. We'll also define where you want to test and to what timeframe.

We then professionally manage the recruitment (if you need us to) and develop a test script to meet your objectives. We will manage the testing process completely, and whilst it is not essential to our process we highly recommend that some of your team view the sessions as they take place.

Once testing is complete we collect and compile the results, and then analyse them to produce the findings. A full report is created, and we will present this back to your team during a half-day results analysis meeting.

Deliverables

• Two full colour copies of the test report, including:
  • Executive summary of findings
  • Overview of methodology used and steps undertaken
  • Key findings from the tests
  • Issues uncovered in the test, by priority and location
  • Recommendations for correcting each issue

If you'd like to see an example usability test report then please contact us.