Your website, in a way, also acts as an employee; It can provide the customer with the information you need about the organization. Naturally, a website also has certain functions - popularizing your message and brand, hosting information and resources, giving users various tools (registration, donation, etc.) that usually help them with any issue.
Usability testing measures how easily and effectively a person can use your website to achieve a specific goal or task. The UX of your website is also important
No matter how functional your site is, real users will have to interact with it. Good usability is not optional nowadays. If your UX is not easy to use then you will need to test and analyze it.
How do we know its time?
As Mightycitizen adds usability problems are clearly clearly rare. Given that you know a lot about your organization and business it becomes impossible to look at it with a foreign eye. So obvious problems may remain out of your sight. Your customers will not always be notified that something is wrong. Thats why it becomes important to get feedback from your target audience from the actual user.
Simply put, your mission is to find out what works well and whats wrong with your site. The next step is to find out why what is happening. Design process, content development process, bugs, navigation problems, etc., you will be able to figure this out during testing. You also get the opportunity to explore your customers actions and motivations - which may be different than you expected.
Once you have a value proposition, you will be able to improve your website and UX list of priorities.
Applicability studies
You can review an expert website or test your own website with heuristics and usability best practices - however every website has this or that problem in this area. So much depends on your resources, goals and your customer actions.
In a usability study, you can ask participants to complete several assignments on a web page. You can observe the processes that make you look problematic, as well as consider what leaves a positive impression and what - a negative one. One round, of course, will not be enough to detect all the problems. Therefore, it is a better idea to start the rest of the tests on time as well as to set up a test plan.
Types of usability testing
There are two methods of examination:
Summary: Used to find out how easy it is for users to complete tasks, navigate if difficult, how much time they need, etc. This methodology allows you to introduce standard metrics that will help you analyze improvement. This type of analysis can help you figure out how the process is going, though not why.
Format: For deeper insights on what and why does not work. This methodology will help you make informed decisions as well as show you specific ways to solve problems.
Test formats
Private or remote: It is easy to understand what is meant here. You can use any app for remote monitoring or meet your users.
With or without supervision: There are certain services where supervision is not required; The customer is obliged (after receiving the instructions) to perform certain tasks. Alternatively, you can have your organization moderator conduct research. In this case, you can make the instructions clearer and ask additional questions.
What should you test?
As difficult as it may be to figure out what you want to test, remember that this is one of the routine tests. You will have time - so start prioritizing and start with some indicator. Can you ask yourself what your web site needs to do to be successful for the organization? Think of specific answers and decide based on what analysis you are interested in.
You may choose too many exam objects, but Jobs test sessions are shorter than an hour, with 5-7 assignments.
Who are you testing?
You do not need hundreds of participants to run one session. The recommended number for the initial stages is 5. However, if you have more complex requirements, it is better to increase the number of jobs.
The selected group should be representative of the audience you are attracting. However, your brand should not be too familiar to them. In general the more diverse the choice (within certain frames) the better.
Use test results
After the first round it is time for analysis. Try to find patterns in your results. Which problems do you encounter often? Which assignments turned out to be relatively difficult? Use ranking to separate each problem.
Lauren Thomas adds that some problems are easy to solve, while others involve significant design changes. In the worst case scenario, we are dealing with the entire site structure. So it would be better to use the results:
- To change the content on the web page
- To fix bugs
- For information redesign or recategorization
Naturally, the more often you use the tests, the more insured you will be.