Now that you explored wire framing to improve the food ordering element
of the Little Lemon website,
it's time to cover how you can test your design for usability.
In this video, you will learn to define usability testing.
Identify the players involved and describe the different types of usability testing.
Usability testing is the process of getting actual people to use a website app
or other products you've designed while tracking their actions and reactions.
Usability testing is crucial to ensure you create an effective,
efficient and delightful experience for your users.
Users are given tasks to perform while being observed by a researcher to see
where they run into difficulties or become confused.
If many people run into the same issues,
recommendations can be made to fix these usability issues.
It offers opportunities to make improvements.
There are many types of usability testing, but the facilitator,
the participant and the tasks given are the leading players in most of them.
Let's cover them now.
The facilitator gives the participants tasks.
They monitor the participants behavior and
listen to feedback as they complete these tasks.
The facilitator may also ask follow-up questions to get
further information from the participant.
The participant is a user of the product you have designed or a similar product.
Practical actions that the participant might carry out in every day life are used
as the tasks in a usability test.
Depending on the study objectives and the usability testing,
they may be highly detailed or vague.
When conducting usability testing, task phrasing is crucial.
Minor inaccuracies in the tasks wording can lead participants to misinterpret what
they are required to complete or affect how they carry out the task.
The facilitator may read the task instructions to the participants or
they may be given to the participants on writing in task sheets.
Participants are often asked to think aloud while completing tasks,
allowing the facilitator to follow their progress.
Knowing which task the user is completing and
that the participant has read the instructions correctly.
There are different usability testing, let's explore them now.
First, qualitative usability testing aims to gather insights,
results and narratives about how users interact with the product.
Qualitative usability testing is the most effective method for identifying issues
with the user experience compared to quantitative usability testing.
This type of testing is more prevalent.
On the other hand, the goal of quantitative usability testing is to
gather metrics that capture the user experience.
Tasks, success and time on task are two metrics frequently collected in
quantitative usability testing.
The most effective method for
gathering benchmarks is quantitative usability testing.
Depending on the type of study, different numbers of people are required for
usability test.
The Nielsen Norman Group advises utilizing five participants for
typical qualitative usability research of a single user group to
identify the volume of a product issues.
Let's now cover other types of usability testing.
Usability testing can be done online.
Online testing is popular, because in-person research,
usually requires more time and money.
You can have moderated and unmoderated online usability testing.
Online facilitated usability tests and
in-person testing operate pretty similarly.
In an in-person environment,
the facilitator assigns the task speaking with the participant.
But online, there is a physical distance between the facilitator and
the participant.
Facilitated tests can typically be held using screen-sharing applications.
In contrast, remote unfacilitated usability tests do not have the same
participant facilitator interaction.
To setup written tasks for the participants,
the facilitator uses online remote testing technology to deliver the tasks.
The participant works alone and at their own pace to do the tasks.
A session recording and metrics like task success are sent to
the researcher when the participant completes the test.
In this video, you learn to define usability testing.
Identify the players involved and describe the different types of usability testing.