Developing a user interface is an iterative process. After developing our initial design, we need to make sure that the design that we created can accommodate users in achieving their goals. To do that, we can use usability testing.
What is Usability Testing?
Usability testing is a method of testing the functionality of a website, app, or other digital product by observing real users as they attempt to complete tasks on it. The users are usually observed by researchers working for a business.
In usability testing, there are 3 core elements:
Facilitator who guides the participant through the test process
Participant: realistic user of the product or service being studied. Participants are often asked to think out loud during usability testing. The goal of this approach is to understand participants’ behaviors, goals, thoughts, and motivations.
Tasks: realistic activities that the participant might actually perform in real life.
Difference with other tests in software development
Unit tests
Unit test is a test to make sure every units of software is working properly as individual units. This test is to test the functionality of the software not user’s usablity.
Integration tests
It’s a test to make sure that every units in the software is working well as a group of
User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
UAT is performed by client to make sure the product is working fine and fulfilling the agreed requirements. It is done after the development stage, unlike usability testing that is done before the development.
Why Usability Testing?
Usability testing can help you understand whether the users:
- Understand how your site works and don’t get ‘lost’ or confused
- Can complete the main actions they need to
- Don’t encounter usability issues or bugs
- Have a functional and efficient experience
- Notice any other usability problems
When to usability test
Usability test is fone during the Discovery phase of a project and this is a great way to assess the site and get feedback from users about how they use the site, any pain points they might have, and places where they struggle to accomplish their tasks. We usually learn new user insights through this testing that even stakeholders have not realized.
Usability test is done in the discovery phase so that the product that will be developed fulfill user’s requirement.
How to usability test
Usability test has two types; quantitative and qualitative.
Quantitative Approach
For quantitative approach, we can use system usability score (SUS). SUS is a standardized tool to measure user satisfaction. It consists of 10 standardized questions with Likert scale as the answer choice. These are the questions:
- I think that I would like to use this feature frequently.
- I found the feature unnecessarily complex.
- I thought the feature was easy to use.
- I think that I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use this feature.
- I found the various functions in this feature were well integrated.
- I thought there was too much inconsistency in this feature.
- I would imagine that most people would learn to use this feature very quickly.
- I found the feature very cumbersome to use.
- I felt very confident using the feature.
- I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going with this feature.
The analysis of SUS is already standardized:
For every odd-numbered question, subtract 1 from the score (X-1)
In question number 3: I thought the feature was easy to use, the participant responded with score 3. The formula is X-1. X is the score given by the participant. Therefore the calculation would be 3 subtracted by 1. The final score from the participant for statement number 3 is 2.
For every even-numbered question, subtract the score from 5 (5-X)
Example: In question number 4:I think that I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use this feature, the participant responded with score 4. The formula is 5-X. X is the score given by the participant. Therefore the calculation would be 5 subtracted by 1. The final score from the participant for statement number 4 is 1.
Sum the scores from even and odd-numbered questions. Then multiply the total with 2.5
To interpret the score, you can use this table:
Qualitative Approach
We can use interview + thinking out loud to do usability test. Before conducting the interview, we need to design a usability testing scenario. As a helper, you can use a table that has 3 columns:
Goal: the goal of the scenario.
Scenario: word by word scenario to facilitate user throughout the UT
User’s feedback: user’s action and feedbacks.
Example
For example, we want to test the feature below. Our application is an application that aims to help users to track their children’s development. This is Materi feature (learning materials) for users. It consists of articles, videos, and forums. The purpose of this feature is to help users to gain knowledge regarding their children’s development.
This feature can be accessed from navbar and homepage like this:
The scenario will be like this:
Goal: Knowing article feature effectivity.
Scenario:
“First, I’m going to ask you to go to the article part. Please state every move that you make. Is there anything not comfortable about navigating to the article section for you?
Next, I’m going to ask you to search for article named “baby’s food” and read it. Please state every move that you make. Is there anything not comfortable about searching and reading the article for you?”
User’s feedback:
Assuming user’s name is Iqbal
For the first task:
User clicked “Materi” from Navbar then click for article.
Takes 10 seconds for Iqbal to do this. No complaint from Iqbal.
For the second task:
Iqbal searched for “baby’s food” article and immediately clicked the first search result. Iqbal says that the search bar is too small and can’t be clicked immediately.
Takes 10 seconds for Iqbal to do this.
Interviews are meant to find out the room for improvements. To analyze interview results, you can sum up the struggle the user undergo, how much time the user needs, and see the patterns.
Analyze and process the results
After we get the data that we needed, we’re going to discover some issues on our application. To process the issues, there are 3 steps that need to be done:
Issue Prioritization
As resources are limited, it is necessary to prioritize usability issues in a way that will optimize analysis. Typically, each usability problem has a grade of severity, influenced by some factors like:
- Task criticality: Rated in terms of impact on the business or the user if the task is not accomplished.
- Issue frequency: How many times an issue has occurred with various participants.
- Issue impact: How much has it impacted the user trying to accomplish the task.
Solution Generation
Typically, usability tests aren’t complete at the conclusion without a list of recommendations (generic suggestions) and solutions (specific instructions). Sometimes the solution is quite obvious — like correcting the placement of a UI component. The situation becomes trickier for those issues with non-obvious or many possible solutions. Which solution is better? Which one is more feasible? What is the cost/benefit of running an experiment to find out?
Solution Prioritization
We need to prioritize solutions according to some parameters. In agile teams, where this subject is treated very seriously, it’s common to use business value and complexity.
After we get the solution to the prioritized issues, we will need to fix the prototype that we made before going on to the next process; developing the application.
Closing Remarks
After knowing what, how, and when of usability test, you can perform your own usability testing. It is important to make sure that the application that we’re developing already satisfy user’s requirements and wants because development process is very expensive.
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