Formative usability testing is best done with a small number of study participants, so that you have time and budget to test more design iterations of the user interface.
Our words define UX research goals for users, stakeholders, and teams. Turning UX research into improved design is already challenging. Why make it more so by setting unsuitable expectations with the words we use to describe research?
There are a lot of elements involved in usability studies with a desktop computer. In this video, we'll walk you through an example test setup, including the necessary equipment, and discuss how to prepare for a test.
There is no excuse for not performing usability studies. They’re fast and cheap, and very convincing. Test with representative customers using realistic tasks, then be amazed by what you observe.
Facilitate better usability studies with these 3 techniques: Echo, Boomerang, and Columbo. These methods allow you to get clarification from participants with minimal disruption or bias.
Tips for translating UX issues found in analytics into user research. Analytics tell you what customers are doing, but not why they are doing it. Pairing analytics and user research will provide you with clearer answers.
Evidence from usability studies can be more convincing than what you say. Even if you can easily determine the difference between good and bad designs, test them anyway.
All usability studies involve asking participants to perform tasks, but the correct way to write those tasks depends on the methodology you’re using. Good quantitative tasks are concrete and focused, while good qualitative tasks are open-ended, flexible, and exploratory.
Task scenarios are core to usability studies. The way researchers write tasks can bias usability results by influencing where people focus their attention.
Don't waste time creating prototypes when the designs already exist in the real world. Before you throw out the old and bring in the new, perform user research on existing websites.
Many organizations claim to be user-centric. Yet they fail to include users in the development process. Without customer input, organizations risk creating bad interfaces.
Developing goals for a usability study, deciding what to test, and crafting user scenarios can be challenging. This method makes the process straightforward.
The phrase “validate the design” discourages teams from finding and following up on UX issues in user testing. UX research must drive design change, not just pat designers on the back.
Teams can use digital chronological logs or affinity diagrams to capture notes, and then aggregate these notes into top findings with the whiteboard method.
Writing good tasks for a usability study is an art, not a science, but there are still rules. Examine your tasks for these 10 common task-writing mistakes.
How users attend to information on a page depends on their tasks and goals, as confirmed by new eyetracking research. Good design promotes efficient scanning. In usability studies, task formulation may tip users to discover features.
