Usability Testing
Usability Testing, sometimes used interchangeably with “user testing”, is a method to test the functionality of apps by observing real people (participants) trying to complete certain objectives (tasks), conducted by facilitators. But why do we even bother with usability testing? and while we’re at it, how do we even do it? In this article, I will attempt to answer those questions.
Why should we do Usability Testing?
You might think that a good UX designer would be able to create a user experience that is intuitive and perfect already, so there’s really no need to bother with usability testing. But weirdly enough, the truth of that statement isn’t really relevant; it’s like saying a good programmer doesn’t need to test their code because they should be able to make one that works. Even IF, the UX is perfect, conducting usability testing gives security and confidence that it IS good, just like tests for code. In general though, the advantages of Usability Testing are:
- Identifying problems in the design.
- Finding room for improvement.
- Learning about the target user’s behavior and preferences.
How do we do Usability Testing?
There are two approaches to usability testing: quantitative, and qualitative.
Quantitative
For the quantitative approach, there’s a standardized scale to measure how good the user experience is, and how satisfied the customers are. That scale is called the SUS scale. It uses 10 questions, with a likert scale as answer choices for all of them (the thing that goes from “heavily disagree” to “heavily agree”). Those questions are:
- I think that I would like to use this feature frequently.
- I found the feature unnecessarily complex.
- I thought the feature was easy to use.
- I think that I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use this feature.
- I found the various functions in this feature were well integrated.
- I thought there was too much inconsistency in this feature.
- I would imagine that most people would learn to use this feature very quickly.
- I found the feature very cumbersome to use.
- I felt very confident using the feature.
- I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going with this feature.
To calculate the score, for each odd number, extract “1” from the score (SCORE — 1), and for each even number, extract the score from “5” (5 — SCORE). Then, sum all of them, multiply them by 2.5, and use this scale to get a grade.
To get a better feel on how this works, we will provide an example later.
Qualitative
The qualitative approach is much less technical than the quantitative one. Usually, the facilitator will use a table with 3 columns, one for “goal”, one for “scenario”, and one for “user feedback”. “goal” is pretty self-explanatory, “scenario” is the question/task that the facilitator will tell the participant to do, and the “user feedback” is, well, the user’s feedback.
The participants are asked to think out loud while they do the scenario that the facilitators gave. Those thoughts are then written down by the facilitator on the “user feedback” column. There are no standardized scales and scores for this one, hence the name “qualitative”.
Example in my team
For this example, we’re going to ask a participant, whose name is Mario, to complete a task. We will be using the “quantitative” approach. The feature to be tested is the “video search” feature.
Mario starts at the homepage.
To get to the “videos” page, he must click on “Materi”. He clicks “Aktivitas” first, and then clicked “Materi”.
Upon reaching the “Materi” page, he must click on the “Video” tab. It took him much faster to realize this, and he immediately clicked on it.
After reaching the “Videos” page, he immediately found the search bar, and used it to look up a video. The task has been completed.
When given the SUS test, this was what he graded it.
- I think that I would like to use this feature frequently. = 5.
- I found the feature unnecessarily complex. = 3 (He didn’t know the “Materi” button was going to lead to the videos page).
- I thought the feature was easy to use. = 5.
- I think that I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use this feature. = 1.
- I found the various functions in this feature were well integrated. = 3.
- I thought there was too much inconsistency in this feature. = 2.
- I would imagine that most people would learn to use this feature very quickly. = 4.
- I found the feature very cumbersome to use. = 1.
- I felt very confident using the feature. = 3.
- I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going with this feature. = 2.
For the odd numbered questions, the total was:
(5–1) + (5–1) +(3–1) + (4–1) +(3–1) = 15.
For the even numbered questions, the total was:
(5–3) + (5–1) + (5–2) + (5–1) +(5–2) = 16.
The sum was 31, and when multiplied by 2.5, the final score was 77.5. Using the SUS grade scale, our final grade was B, which is good, but not Excellent. Now, we know that to get to the “videos” page from the homepage, a more obvious button needs to be implemented to make it better. If it’s more intuitive in that aspect, then the usability for this feature would be excellent.
Conclusion
Usability Testing might be cumbersome, but it can potentially give so much insight on how to improve and make the experience of using your app so much better. If you want your app to be as intuitive and refined as possible, then doing usability testing is a must!
Thank you for reading!