When it comes to understanding what your users actually want and need, there can be little doubt that usability testing is the best way forward. Okay, A/B testing is still a valued tool in any field but nowadays it is considered to be rather limited as far as conversion optimisation is concerned. This article looks at usability testing and why every business should seriously consider making the switch sooner rather than later.
What are usability testing tools?
Essentially, usability testing tools are used to evaluate either a service or a product in a controlled environment. Usually, there will be a number of observers who are taking notes and watching the testing process. The main objective of this set of activities is to ultimately collect and process valuable data that will help to ascertain the quality of the service or product. This applies to all sorts of products and services ranging from websites and small appliances, all the way up to motor cars, large electrical goods and building ideas. Website Usability testing tools have more recently been successfully applied to online shopping experiences amongst other cyber-based products and services like websites, mobile apps supporting multiple languages.
Why do they work?
It is a fairly simple yet tried and tested a theory that allows potential buyers to give their opinion on a service or product. This is based on their real-time experience and offers invaluable data for the designer to build on whether the feedback is good or bad. In the past, many such designers have fallen foul of their own egos when creating a product or service. Their mindsets are wholly focussed on the actual work that goes into the end result. Usability testing offers a discerning view of the aforementioned body of work and feeds back invaluable comments to the designer in question. Websites and other online entities can only be launched with confidence when every single aspect has been tested and experienced. How else can we be 100% sure that all of the bugs and glitches have been both discovered and eliminated?
How to conduct a usability test
The whole point of this type of testing is to collect valid criticism of your product or service and the best way to do this is by avoiding any favouritism. In general, people do not like to make personal comments to their friends and colleagues, so it is a good idea to convince them that you are not the designer in question. This allows them to be free and honest with their opinions. Here follow some key points that will help to set up a fair usability test:
- Always set your testers a goal, something that can be achieved in a fairly short period of time. The success and design of your service or product depend on these results.
- Ensure that you can observe their activities without any distraction or interruption for both parties. If possible, recruit several more people to collect data based on the activities and results or better use remote
- Be specific with your goal and try to avoid helping them to achieve this as you need the results to be as pure as possible.
- Out of all these, remote usability testing using quick, easy and in-budget platform like Userfeel for your websites and apps is highly recommended.
As we’ve already mentioned, usability testing is now the way to ensure your design is both foolproof and built for a purpose. The sooner that you start running using best modern user testing platform tool like Userfeel.com, the more chance you have of achieving those desired conversion rates.
