The What, How and Why Of Website Usability Testing!
Usability is the core of any design and development project, it is at the forefront of most designer’s mind, something considered by both back-end and front-end developers and is there in the list of a marketers, SEO professionals and content creators. Usability tests can uncover problems with website design and functionality mostly the navigation issues, highlight overall design effectiveness, determine content relevance, and assess customers’ ability to complete critical tasks.
So, What grade your website will get, if it took a usability test? Well! You might not be aware that your website is getting tested for usability everyday and every time a visitor visits it. Just eleven seconds on an average and a visitor decides to stay or leave the website. But, in order to make your project a success, it is vital that you do the usability testing in-house using personal resources or outsource it by hiring professionals who are experts on getting the website back on track.
What?
According to an analysis done by Jakob Nielsen “The mean increase of conversion rates with usability optimization was 87%.” – (The usability of websites was optimized with the help of usability tests).
Usability Testing is the Black horse of improving conversions! If your website is hard to use and difficult to navigate through (or have other usability issues), it will definitely result in poor conversions. Thus, usability testing is observing real user’s website usage pattern, paying attention to their experiences and try to spot pattern based issues. Once you have the observations and analysis, iterate the website design, code or copy to diminish the barriers between your website and success. Suffice to say that a website works, if its users feel that it works!
According to the Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests by Jeffrey Rubin and Dana Chisnell:
“What makes something useable is the absence of frustration in using it” and further, “when a product or service is truly usable, the user can do what he or she wants to do the way that he or she expects to be able to do it, without hindrance, hesitation or questions”.
Why?
Well! It is common sense to plot your target audience and create a strategy before, start with design and development work, but it is never guaranteed that the first design received will be accepted by users as expected. Thus, this gives the answer to the question that “Why User testing is important?”. Usability testing ensures that at the launch day, you have a product that you know your target audience will love. Yes, you may have tested the website yourself, may be on multiple devices, but then you could have been a little biased and must get it tested by some less biased sources, probably your potential end users.
Also, appealing design and easy navigation is the key for user-friendliness and it is important that the user testing must be done considering this. The design and layout should be such that a click of a button could take the user instantly to where they want to go.
How?
Maybe you do not have a large budget or the time to outsource the usability testing job for your website. No Problem! All you require is a usability plan of action, and then implement it getting the input you necessitate to make assessments based on the outcomes of the testing, and then plan out how to tweak, modify, or fix the entire website based on your results.
Step – 1 Identify the right people associated with the website content, planning and development, Pool them together in “Usability Testing team”. This is always better than doing all on your own! Then create a usability testing plan that will outline the steps that what you are going to accomplish, How you will perform testing and what metrics you are going to capture and other such elements like scope, logistics, scenarios etc.
Step -2 Now, when you have a well laid testing plan, you can implement the testing without further delays. Testing will require participants that should replicate the actual target audience. Make sure your participants are comfortable, and have a facilitator explain the testing session, allowing them to ask questions.
Step – 3 After several objective and subjective measurements, you finally got the results. It is now time to collect and compile the data. Analyze the data both quantitative data (success rates, task time, error rates, and satisfaction questionnaire ratings) and qualitative data (observations that participants shared about problems they experienced).
Step – 4 You want to improve your website based on your finding and a proper report of the results can just help you achieve this. A solid report can help your website get back on track. Prepare a report that has results categorized on the level of importance and priority. Ensure to account any constructive findings, bring to light any opportunities for enhancement, and propose ways to leverage the good to make the website even better.
Step – 5 The final step is to decide on what changes exactly have to be made first as per the priority and while others can rest. List down the changes need to be made to make the website apt for a better user experience. What’s next? Get them fixed!
[image error]
