Usability testing involves watching representative users working with your
product so that you can make improvements based on what you see.
Usability testing gives you invaluable feedback about how your users behave with
your product. Knowing how users behave helps you create
a much more suitable site or application. Rather than just guessing about what
people might like or need, you can see their reactions firsthand and then make
sure your product contains just the right features.
Learning about issues early in the process saves development time and money.
Rather than spending time developing the wrong thing, a quick usability test will
tell you whether you're on the right track or not.
Don't be afraid to run usability tests using paper prototypes before you start
writing any actual code. Getting the data directly from your users
is a much better way of doing design work than arguing about features among the team.
In fact, usability testing is a great way of stopping arguments.
Rather than spending time fighting over whose idea is best, put the concept in
front of the real users to see how well they can work with it.
There's nothing quite like real user feedback to help you determine the best
foot forward. The thing that's separating usability
testing from many other methods is with usability testing, you're seeing real
behavior, what people do, rather than just asking what people think.
Often, watching people do something is the only way to really understand where
their issues lie and how to fix the problems you see.