Usability testing

I'm a big fan of usability testing and believe it can give you a huge competitive advantage. If you're here, you probably agree, so here's how I can help.

I offer three type of usability test:

  1. The most popular test is a variation of a think-aloud evaluation. I have a database of my own testers along with information on them and their backgrounds so we can choose suitable people to represent your typical users. I create a scenario in which I ask my usability testers to place themselves, then I give them a task and ask for written feedback of their whole journey. I often start way back before they reach the computer so I also gather information for marketing. For instance, if we are testing a holiday cottage company, I might ask whether they have booked such a holiday before, if not why not and if so where, how, when and so on. Then I ask them to imagine they are going to book a cottage break for half term, and to go looking for a solution. If they find a competitor, I ask for a little feedback on that. Then I guide them to your website and ask for detailed impressions and a record of their every action on the way to the goal of making a booking. I may ask perhaps five or six users to do this, then I summarise the results to you. A starting price for such an evaluation is about £200 and if you implement the findings it will probably make a profound difference to your business.
    A proper think-aloud usability test is done with the tester and subject working together, with the subject voicing their impressions as they go and the tester asking questions. The whole thing is videoed and analysed later.
  2. A cognitive walkthrough is a detailed, step by step, expert analysis of the stages a user is expected to go through to accomplish the task (of buying something, usually). At each step we ask four questions:
    1. Will the user be trying to take the action we expect?
    2. Will the user be able to notice that the correct action is available?
    3. When they find the correct action, will they know it's the correct action?
    4. After they've taken the action, will they understand what happens next
    These may seem a little dry, but such a detailed analysis can be very profound indeed. Again this starts around £200 so it's not terribly expensive.
  3. A heuristic analysis basically looks at your website from the point of view of things like user control and freedom, error prevention, and aesthetic and minimalist design and evaluates it against best practice. Typically more than one expert does this evaluation so it gets a little more expensive than the other methods, but for a website that has undergone basic usability testing, this may be the next step.

Of course, usability testing isn't just about testing a finished website, it's very much best used as part of the development process, even at the wireframe and mood board stage.

In some circumstances a possible alternative to usability testing is split testing where you create two alternative page designs and send half your visitors to one, the other half to the alternative, and measure the results. This is a great way to evolve your website taking real-life visitors as your testers.

If you implement usability testing more effectively than your competitor, you're going to have a better website and a better online business, it really is that simple and that powerful. Do get in touch, I'm sure I can help.