How to do web usability testing

Following the theme of a blog post (a comprehensive interpretation of usability), let's continue with the usability of the site. The Last Post details the concept, importance, and some improvements to the usability of the site, leaving a hint: How to use usability testing? Let's finish the story today.

Let's start with a few important facts about web usability testing:

If you want to build a good website, be sure to test.

Testing a user is one times better than not doing a test.

Testing a user early is better than testing 50 users at the end.

The key to testing is not to prove anything or disprove anything, but to understand your judgment.

Testing is an iterative process.

In the face of such a fact, you still have reason not to pay attention to "website usability test"?

For Web site usability testing, you can do this through the following steps:

The first step: Preliminary preparation, build test environment.

The construction of the test environment includes: an Office (Conference room), a computer (to connect to the network), a screen recording software, a video camera (which can record the operator's actions, and can also pass the signal to another office via a video line) so that everyone in the project team can observe without interfering with the test user.

Step two: Recruit test subjects and find typical users.

It can be done through open recruitment (some small gifts or rewards are recommended), followed by screening and interviewing applicants to finalize your typical target audience. Test can be divided into multiple rounds, each round of 3-5 users to participate in the test.

Step three: Set the task (target), observe (record) its operation trajectory.

Before you set up a task for your users, be clear about the main purpose of your site.

If it is an ordinary company official website, the purpose of the site is very clear, is to provide users with effective delivery of products (services) information, the task can be set: Let test users find XX products;

If it is the Electronic business site, the purpose of the site in addition to effectively display product information, but also should have a simple, convenient shopping process experience. The task can be set to: Let the test user find the XX product (product name or product attribute) and complete the shopping.

Other types of Web sites are not listed. After setting up a targeted task for the test user, the tester will be careful to observe each step of the user's actions and make detailed records. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure the effective operation of "screen recording software", which is an effective reference for the project team to carry out comprehensive analysis.

The fourth step: Interview test user experience.

While observing and recording the user's action, we can do some simple interviews at the same time, such as the XX function is useful? is the setting of XX column reasonable? Is the name selection understandable? Are the exhibits comprehensive? ...... Wait a minute.

The fifth step: Analyze the observation result and the interview result Synthetically, draw the conclusion.

It is not difficult to find the problem, it is rare to solve the problem. The goal of this step is to identify problems and find feasible solutions.

Finally stressed that the site usability testing should not be limited to the site testing period, should be divided into multiple stages, such as: Web site development period, the maturity of the site should be reasonable arrangements for testing.

Website Usability optimization is not a short-term process, is throughout, never-ending, because the technology is constantly updated, because the user's requirements will be more and more high. Please keep in mind!

Source: Meki submission, original link.