user research — Design4Users

Usability Testing in Design: Types and Benefits

Marina Yalanska — Mon, 07 May 2018 11:42:12 +0000

A tech guru, Steve Jobs, once said: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Unfortunately, some people still think that designers’ job ends with aesthetic aspects of a product. Nevertheless, UX design depends on several key factors including usability, utility, desirability, attractiveness. Each facet plays its role for a sufficient product, so a creative team needs to make sure all them are done right by conducting tests. Today’s article is devoted to the peculiarities of usability testing and various methods helping to discern usability problems.

Why Does Usability Matter?

Before we go to the essence of usability testing, let’s find out what usability means and why it is called a core part of effective UX. Nielsen Norman Group defines usability as a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The level of usability depends on five aspects: learnability, satisfaction, efficiency, memorability, and errors. Learnability stands for how easy users can attain tasks during the first usage and satisfaction is how pleasant the usage process is. Efficiency is determined by users’ ability to accomplish a task quickly while memorability depends on time which people need to re-establish their proficiency after a period of not using a product. And finally, designers track the number of errors users make and how easily they can learn from these mistakes.

When all these factors are considered, digital products provide a high level of usability which means people can easily and effectively use them. But why expert designers are so concerned about a single aspect of UX? Isn’t it more important what services and solutions apps and websites provide? Obviously, the features make a product valuable for people. However, if users can’t figure out how to use an application, it brings zero profit to them. Even the most beautiful interface can’t guarantee a success without a clean functionality system. That’s why one of the core stages of UX building is usability testing.

What’s Usability Testing?

Usability testing is a technique helping to evaluate a product by testing it on potential users. This way designers are able to see if a website or an app is usable enough as well as distinguish possible problems in UX. Usability testing is usually conducted at the UX building stage before a project goes to the development team. It allows changing inefficient solutions easier rather than in a complete product.

Moreover, usability testing is a good way to dive deeper into users’ needs and preferences by watching their reactions while they use a product. Designers can collect the essential information needed for the creation of an effective user-centered design. Also, the gathered information can be used not only for UX design but at the other stages of product development.

Types of Usability Testing Methods

To reach the high effectiveness of usability testing and gain the expected profit, designers apply various methods which can be categorized into three main groups: explorative, assessment, and comparative.

Explorative methods are used at the earliest stages of UX. Designers present wireframes of a product to users and watch their reactions. Explorative methods aim at discovering how people comprehend the concept of a product and how their mental processes work while they use a certain product.

Assessment methods are used in the later stages when a user can test the usability of goods via prototypes. Such methods help to evaluate the effectiveness of an app or a website as well as determine the level of users’ satisfaction with a product. Real-time experiments assist to track users’ reactions and errors they make. The collected information is used for eliminating usability problems that have been determined during tests.

Finally, comparative usability testing methods are involved when designers need to choose between several solutions. Users compare two or more variants of UX elements then share the opinion with a creative team. Experts consider all the pros and cons of each variant and select the most user-friendly one.

There is a great number of usability testing methods. All of them vary and can be used under different circumstances. The choice often depends on goals that a team sets and the budget of a project. We’ve distinguished some common methods of helping to test usability. Let’s see what they are.

Home Budget App

Hallway Testing

This method foresees testing a website or an app on random people, meaning designers can ask someone passing in a hallway or elsewhere. Hallway testing may seem a bit difficult because it requires finding people who would love to take part in such an experiment and then would be able to give constitutive feedback. The method is often used when the biggest part of work is done so that users could feel it like a complete product. Hallway Testing is one of the most common methods since it’s cheaper and faster than many others.

Remote Usability Testing

The name of the method speaks for itself. Such an approach allows involving people from different countries so that a creative team could see how their product is perceived in various cultures. There are two types of remote usability testing: synchronous or asynchronous.

Synchronous remote testing is handled via video conferencing as well as various sharing tools such as WebEx or GoToMeeting. The synchronic approach allows designers to watch how different people use a product in a real-time. Also, users can receive some support from a creator if needed. Still, synchronous remote testing has its drawbacks. Users should be asked to gather in a certain time and if they live in different time zone it may be problematic. That’s why a day and time should be arranged upfront and it may take some time to find the best option for everyone.

Asynchronous remote testing is a bit easier to handle. Designers usually set particular tasks that users need to accomplish and then all the information including clicks streams and users’ errors that occur while interacting with a product are gathered automatically. Also, designers may ask users to give small feedback about their experience. This way a creative team can track how people from different cultures react to the product using it in their own environment (e.g. at home).

Expert Reviews

This common method involves an evaluation from the experts with experience in usability testing. The approach gives the opportunity to receive wide and constituent feedback and spend less time for it. Experts usually apply testing tools but also they can test it like users. Also, there is another approach called automated expert reviews. It is conducted programs that define usability problems by the use of common patterns. Automated expert reviews are one of the fastest methods still it cannot test all the peculiarities connected with human factors.

Paper Prototype Testing

One of the essential stages of product creation is wireframing. It is a simplified and schematic visual representation of a layout for website pages or screens of an application interface. They are usually black and white illustrations, sometimes with bright marks or spots to outline specific areas or points, that give a clear vision of the project structure and connections between different parts.

The wireframes can be presented to users where they can perform certain tasks like in a real product by interacting with paper models. The method may seem unsophisticated still it’s a cheap and fast way to find out usability problems at the early stages.

Thinking Aloud

Thinking aloud is a usability testing method which aims at collecting feedback from users right in the usage process. Designers ask users to verbalize their thoughts and feelings which they have while using an app or website. A creative team can comprehend the attitude patterns of the potential users and apply the gathered info for future UX improvements.

Design4Users Website

Is Usability Testing Profitable?

We’ve described only several methods of usability testing but there are much more of them. Methods can be changed or combined depending on the goals. If you still doubt whether you need to conduct usability testing, let’s look at the list of tasks which it helps to accomplish and benefits it brings.

Collecting the info helping to improve UX;
Identifying problems and bugs which a creative team can’t notice;
Ensuring user satisfaction with a product;
Increased efficiency of products;
Reduced cost of the development process;
Fast problem elimination;
A product with a high level of usability will definitely stand out of crowd.

They say better twice measured than once wrong. Just remember that it’s easier to fix problems at the early stages rather than rebuild a complete product.

Design for Business Goals: Explore the Target

Marina Yalanska — Wed, 03 May 2017 15:13:32 +0000

A successful business is never a simple game: it is the complex mechanism and to make it work, we have to know the factors of influence and methods of their effective combination. Design is definitely one of those secrets which can have a great impact on profits and promotion. Moreover, this is the coin of two sides, because the real design is not only about the nice skin and stylish look but also about functionality and utility.

Earlier we have already published the glossary posts with key notions for the topics of business terms and abbreviations useful for designers as well as highlighted some aspects in more details in the free ebook “Design for Business”. This time let’s add some deeper insights into the essence of setting and exploring the target of the product and the mutual influence of design and marketing have on each other.

Marketing

“Marketing is a contest for people’s attention”. Seth Godin

Definition. In general terms, marketing is the set of studies and methods devoted to the management of exchange relations. Basically, it is the multi-layered process whose aim is to connect the products with the customers. It can involve the variety of advertising and promotional activities, market and customer research, organization of sales, direct and indirect communication with the target audience. In terms of tough and diverse competition in most markets nowadays, marketing is the strategy and the trophy to achieve is users’ and customers’ attention.

Design aspect. Design and marketing have been supporting each other for many decades, so there are two basic directions of their connection.

The direction from marketing to design means involving techniques of marketing into the design process from the early stages of product creation or updates. The cases when marketing strategy is thought out from the stage of ideation on the future product makes the design even more meaningful: not only do designers create the product solving users’ problems or satisfying needs, but also set the channels and ways how the product can be noticed by the customer, how it can get interesting for a target user and what are the ways to show its benefits effectively. Knowing all that stuff, the designers can find the appropriate UX – the logic of the product and UI – visual presentation of its features. Each tiny element or aspect like the color or shape of a button to the global approach to color palette, the choice of fonts and the space between elements on the page or screen, every transition and micro-interaction designed properly and applied wisely can have a huge impact on the success of the product and its ability to fulfill the business goals.

Web design for e-commerce: Vinny’s Bakery

Moreover, it must be said that high-quality user-friendly product is the best marketing strategy. That is why design plays a crucial role as it creates the features and the wrapping able to attract users and engage them, spark the wish to use it again, and make it helpful so that users could have a solid reason to love it.

The reverse direction from design to marketing means that design itself becomes a powerful way to present the product or even the person on the market. Design solutions applied for creating commercial, corporate, or personal identity through branding become the foundation for the marketing strategy, in most cases starting from the moment when the product gets its sign of distinction such as logo or icon. Designers create visual support of the promotional campaigns from posters, leaflets, and brochures to complex sets of branded items and corporate interior style of point-of-sales. As long as people are the creatures of not only physical but also social and aesthetic nature, the design is going to take a big part of any business success.

Corporate branding: design of business cards

Anyway, marketing is the point where people who create the product and those who build the bridge between the product and the customer should have the same goals: to provide users/customers with something that will be helpful and satisfying their needs. To do that, first of all, it’s important to set the group for which it is created and analyze what its preferences are.

Target audience

“In sales there are going to be times when you can’t make everyone happy. Don’t expect to and you won’t be disappointed. Just do your best for each client in each situation as it arises. Then, learn from each situation how to do it better the next time.” Tom Hopkins

Definition. The term “target audience” comes from the spheres of publishing, in which it means the readers intended for the particular book or edition, and marketing, in which it sets behind the group of customers potentially interested in the particular product or service. The quickly developing sphere of digital products such as websites or applications absorbed this term immediately meaning the audience which presents the potential users of the specific app or website.

Certainly, for many creators, it can be hard initially to find out what their target audience is: they would like this product to be used and loved by everyone. Still, in real life, it’s a sort of utopia which can become a death knell for the product. Selecting the core target audience and then, if needed and possible, broaden the abilities of the product to make it attractive and useful for the broader circle of users in many cases proves itself as a much more successful and effective strategy. Setting the priorities, it’s easier to concentrate on key functionality and make it faster than trying to satisfy everyone at once.

App design for wedding planner

Design aspect. As we mentioned in the ultimate guide to creating a mobile application, user research, and market research are highly advisable to be done at the start of the creative process to provide the designer or the creative team with understanding what their target audience is:

-what their interests and wishes are
what kind of communication and lifestyle is convenient and common for them
what problems they have and which of them the designed product solves
what are the typical environments when they use this kind of products
where they could get the information about the product
what could stimulate them to try the product
what could engage them to get back to it again after the first experience
what could involve them into using the product on a regular basis
what could make this product different from the others on the market for the target users.

Joel Anderson said, “You can’t just open a website and expect people to flood in. If you really want to succeed you have to create traffic.” Design is one of the powerful methods to do it, especially in cases when it’s strengthened with appropriate copy and general content selection. Creating custom graphics, supporting microinteractions with motion, writing clear, concise and informative copy, choosing readable fonts and nice color combinations, setting landing pages for specific purposes instead of sending the user to the tons of information on the home page of the website, you can directly attract and create traffic that will give profits and support the thriving business.

Funny and bright design for Toonie Alarm

Minimalistic and elegant design for Upper App

Targeting

“You can’t wait for customers to come to you. You have to figure out where they are, go there and drag them back to your store.” (Paul Graham)

Definition. Briefly, targeting is another term from marketing widely applied in the sphere of digital design. It is usually associated with the strategy and techniques of the particular target audience to find the best and the shortest ways to attract their attention to the particular product.

Design aspect. The scheme is very simple: when you shoot without seeing your target, the chance that you will score exists but its miserably slim. If you shoot seeing the target, the chances grow. The closer you come to your target, the higher becomes the possibility of hitting the mark.

This metaphor successfully works in both marketing and design. Having set who the potential user of the designed website or app is and researching the basic and extended data about this group of users, designers are able to create the solutions which will get close to the user along one or several factors. Let’s briefly review what aspects and factors can influence this process setting the directions of targeting.

Geographic targeting. Location of the person is important to set the cultural background as well as the natural environment of using the product. It means that even one product can be different in some visual features or operational performance to satisfy users from a particular country or region, up to having different names to sound more catchy or informative on the local market.

Gender targeting. If you know that your target audience is mostly men or mostly women, this kind of data can have a great impact on design solutions based on the psychological and perceptional differences. Even such a basic aspect as the color choice can be highly influenced by the gender of the core target audience.

Psychographic targeting is grounded on knowledge of motives that move the user to try this type of product. It is based on a deep knowledge of the typical lifestyle, interests, etc.

Demographic targeting happens when creators and marketers are focused on catching attention and involving a particular demographic group, for example, based on age, ethnicity, income, qualification, marital status, having kids, etc.

Behavioral targeting is based on defining the target audience along the particular models of behavior, for example, young adults regularly visiting night clubs or people buying coffee and drinking it on the go.

Night in Berlin App

Understanding the process and methods of targeting and getting this sort of knowledge enables designers to choose the shortcuts to users’ needs and wishes. That is why in cases of outsourcing design it’s highly advisable to take all the chances of getting maximum possible information about the potential users and business goals from the customer. One of the good methods is creating user personas, user stories, and user cases, on which we will give more details in our next posts.