You can find about 27 million software developers worldwide. So many commit one cardinal sin: not developing their products with the end consumers in mind. So often, as modern-age inventors, many software developers get engorged by their idea and inventions and struggle to imagine that some people might not like their work. Or the product they’re working on has many uses with far-reaching implications, except that nobody can use it. 

In this article, we’ll talk about how you can perfect your product by walking you through the basics of usability testing. It’s often a complicated topic, but we will help you walk away from this piece with a few golden nuggets. Let’s begin. 

What is Usability Testing?

In a nutshell, usability testing involves examining a product to expose and fix its flaws. But, of course, the ultimate goal is to get as close to perfection as possible by gathering and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data. And if you’re looking for a career that pays you to judge something for its faults, this is it.

Usability testing can help developers determine the kind of experience the unfamiliar user has while interacting with the product. Are they happy with it? Does the product address their pain points or stress them out? When we said that the goal was to get as close to perfection as possible, we meant making sure that the user has a pleasant experience with your product. 

In gathering information from user experience, you can do many things not limited to:

1. Determining whether people can efficiently complete tasks
2. Gauging how long it takes to complete them
3. Finding and fixing bugs or performance issues in-house testing didn’t reveal
4. Addressing points of confusion in interface functionality

Beyond just helping you gather relevant data, usability testing helps you gain valuable and actionable insights that guide you in improving the product. For one, it allows you to understand the needs of your user or potential market consumers and fine-tune the product accordingly. It can also help you introduce the necessary changes in the design or function departments. The benefits of usability testing go on and on, but the big ones include the following:

1. Saving time and resources
2. Identifying valuable opportunities
3. Ensuring easy use
4. Obtain unbiased opinions
5. Gaining a significant competitive advantage

So, where do we start? First, you need to learn about what happens in a usability test.  Let’s start with its elements. Generally, you have three: facilitators, tasks, and participants. Let’s go over them one by one. 

Facilitators

Facilitators administer tasks to participants, observe their behaviors, and take note of their feedback. They’re in charge of giving instructions, explaining the tasks, and answering any questions participants may have. Ultimately, their job is to gather high-quality and valid data. 

You need to look for usability specialists with the right experience and skills because facilitating is more challenging than it seems. Failure in this department could skew results, so it’s essential to find facilitators who can guide the test from the opening to the closing act. In addition, they should be able to build comfort and rapport with participants without unduly influencing their behavior. And, of course, they should be capable of observing and recording feedback. 

Tasks

Tasks are activities that your target market will ordinarily do with your product. As long as their realistic and use the proper wording, they can be specific or open-ended and delivered in either written or verbal forms. An example of a task can be to open a new credit card with a product or use it to find a specific location. 

In administering tasks, it’s essential to start with simple ones so participants can have time to be shown around the test setup. Then, as you follow your design’s flow, it’s ideal to give users one task at a time and make these actionable. Set the scenario using a title and a description, and as much as possible, avoid asking leading questions.

Participants

Participants are the testers. They are realistic users of your product whose job is to give feedback based on their experience. So sometimes, they might be asked to verbally describe their experience or narrate their actions.

The number of participants you need for usability testing depends on your product. You need to recruit representative users or realistic participants that belong to your target demography. It’s essential to have a standard operating procedure for recruitment or at least hire a recruitment agency. When recruiting your participants, quality matters as much as quantity. Unfortunately, getting the right participants is arguably the most challenging part of the testing. 

The Cost of Usability Testing

Usability testing costs at least a couple of hundred dollars up to thousands depending on several factors. It’s essential to prepare for more than one usability test, which is why you need to understand what goes into the test cost. It typically depends on the type of testing performed, the number of participants, and the duration of testing, among others. You will also want to look at the time, recruiting costs, participant compensations, and rental costs. 

Understand that you will need time to plan and execute the usability test. You must devote resources to recruiting usability specialists, teams, and participants. You will also have to pay for testing equipment if you don’t have the needed ones. Regarding costs, look at usability testing as an investment, not just a simple milestone to be checked off your project schedule. 

Usability testing is often a long, challenging, and often costly process. Not only do you have to ensure that you gather high-quality data, but you must equally invest just as many resources to analyze them. However, the valuable and actionable insights you get from the test ensure a higher probability of product success, and that makes it worth it.