Usability Testing: How to Do It & Its Benefits for Business

Digital transformation is earning a lot of attention these days while the path to digital transformation is restricted with various challenges. The varying nature of user expectations is one of the major challenges faced at the time of delivery of a flawless website or application. If a product is launched after proper usability testing, it will help in attracting more users and make them stick to the website or application, resulting in rising business growth.

Usability testing directly deals with the real users’ experiences. This type of software testing is performed by a group of end-users who use the application and find out the usability defects. It only relies upon making the application easier, flexible for the end-users so that is why it is also called User experience testing. It is highly recommended to perform this testing at the beginning phase of the software development life cycle in order to get the clarity of the user expectations from the website or application.

If done rightly, Usability Testing is the key to success. In the end, it can be summarized as the process which ensures that the end product meets the users’ demands in order to deliver a flawless user experience.

Types of Usability Testing

# Explorative Testing: Explorative testing is performed in order to analyze what content and functionality the new product should possess to meet the expectations of the target audience before releasing a new product. In this type of testing, users test specific services where they are given real scenarios to perform which helps to highlight any kind of loopholes if present.

# Comparative Testing: This type of testing is performed to compare the usability of two different websites. Comparative tests are usually used to compare a website against a competitor site. However, it can also be used to compare two designs to analyze which one provides the best user experience.

Usability testing involves actual users while traditional testing may involve a developer or project manager. As usability testing collects the feedback directly from the end user so it removes any kind of bias. Feedback received from the users is captured and tested to avoid having unsatisfied users after the deployment of the application.

Benefits of Usability Testing

1. Good user interface provides better conversion rate

2. Improved Accessibility

3. Increased user satisfaction resulting in competitive advantage

4. Increases the level of trust among the users that results in longer and stronger relationships

5. Users are better able to achieve their goals which results in the business meeting its targets

6. It minimizes the product failing risks

7. Due to early user feedback, optimized cost and effort is promised

8. Issues and potential problems are taken care of even before the product is launched

Objectives of Usability Testing

1. User-Friendly: The application or website should be highly intuitive and should not require any kind of training to operate. ‘Help’ option should be provided for ease of use to understand the application/website.

2. Efficiency: Switching onto desired screens or webpages should be smooth enough and fast. Frequent use of scroll bars should be eliminated. The whole application or website should have uniformity in the format of screens/pages. Search functionality should be implemented within the software application or website.

3. Effectiveness: It is very important to make sure that the system is easy to learn, useful and adds some significant value to the target audience. Colours, content, icons and images should be highly pleasing.

4. Accuracy: Communication information or company address should be present and it should not be incorrect or outdated. Updated information should be displayed. No broken links should be present on the website or application.