Why should your company embrace user testing of your site or printed materials?
4 top reasons why:
- Testing challenges your assumptions: either as a business owner, developer or design professional. It lets you see it through your customer’s or user’s eyes and understand what matters to them. And it’s a great way to settle design decisions.
- It gives you a clear direction on how to improve things. Testing picks up any flaws in writing, layout, functionality, information and graphic design. Both online and offline, flaws lead to confusion and frustration. At worst, you lose a sale or receive a large volume of calls to customer support.
- That’s why this sort of testing needs to be about behaviour, not opinions. Even if you ask, people can’t always articulate what they think. So you need to watch how people use it.
- It’s not just about identifying usability issues. User testing can uncover brand and business insight, what the user experience is like and the best way to structure information. And it can be an opportunity to find out how you compare to your competitors.
How do we go about user testing?
We typically observe and record people from your target audience performing realistic pre-defined tasks they’d commonly do on your site or with your print materials – this could be making a purchase or entering some specific data.
A typical user testing session. Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/l-i-n-k/
During each one-to-one test lasting approximately one hour, we collect data about the error and success rates of the tasks – where people stumble and what’s causing it. We also collect qualitative data about the participants’ experiences using the site or document as they talk me through what they’re doing and thinking. We can record: how they navigate, their level of understanding and how they’re making decisions.
Finally we carry out pre- and post-test surveys to gain deeper insight into the participant’s attitudes, opinions and experiences. It’s also a great opportunity to test recall, recognition and brand awareness.
Has your company already embraced user testing?
What did you learn about your customers?
Are you interested in finding out more about user testing?
Drop me an email or give me a call on 07531 122 532.
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