Quick and Dirty Usability testing tips?

Question

What are your best usability testing tips? I need quick & cheap.

Garlandgarlanda

Answer 1

While aimed at web design, Steve Krug's excellent "Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach To Web Usability" features (in the second edition, at least), a great chapter entitled "Usability Testing On 10 Cents A Day", which I think is applicable to a much wider range of platforms.

The chapter specifically deals with usability testing done quick and dirty, in a low-budget (no money and/or no time) environment, and illustrates some of the most important considerations for getting an initial "feel" of the thing.

Some of the points I like in particular are:

• You don't need to test with a huge number of people (a sentiment also echoed by Jakob Nielsen)
• A live reaction is worth a lot; if possible, make sure the developers can see the reaction (perhaps using a video camera and a TV; it doesn't need to be an expensive one)
• Testing a few people early is better than a lot later

Joel Spolsky is known for advocating "hallway usability testing", where you grab a few passing users and ask them to complete some simple task. Partly inspired by the "a few users yield the bulk of the results" philosophy, it's also relatively convenient and inexpensive, and can be done every so often.

Finegrained

Answer 2

Ask someone non-techy and unfamiliar with it to use it.

The archetypal non-technical user, one's elderly and scatterbrained maiden aunt. Invoked in discussions of usability for people who are not hackers and geeks; one sees references to the “Aunt Tillie test”.

The Aunt Tilly Test (Probably needs a better name in today's day and age, but that's what it's referred to)

Ibnsaud

Ah, the Aunt Tilly Test! +1 for you! – Portuna

Answer 3

You have to watch people use your application. If you work in a reasonable sized company, do some 'hallway testing'. Pull someone who is walking past your door into the room and say something like, 'Could you please run the payroll on this system for the next month? It should only take two minutes'.

Hopefully they won't have any problems and it shouldn't be too much of an imposition on the people walking past. Fix up any hiccups or smooth over any processes that are unnecessarily complex and repeat. A lot.

Also, make sure you know what usability is and how to achieve it. If you haven't already, check out The Design of Everyday Things.

Tiepolo

Answer 4

Some good tips here.

One mistake I made earlier on in my career was turning the usability test into a teaching exercise. I'd spend a fair amount of time explaining how to use the app rather than letting the user figure that out. It taught me a lot about whether my applications were easy or hard to use by how puzzled they got trying to use the app.

One thing I did was put together a very simple scenario of what I wanted the user to do and then let them go do it. It didn't have step-by-step instruction ("click the A button, then click the B button") but instead it said things like "create a new account" and "make a deposit". From that, the user got to 'explore' my application and I got to see how easy it was to use.

Anyhow, that was pretty cheap and quite enlightening to me.

Endstopped

Answer 5

Quick and cheap won't cut it. You have to invest in a user experience framework, starting with defining clear goals for your app or website. I know it's not what people want to hear, but after supervising and watching a lot of user testing over the years, using Nielsen's discount usability methods is just not enough in most cases. Sure, if your design really sucks and have made huge usability errors, quick and dirty will get 80% of the crud out of the system. But, if you want long-term, quality usability and user experience, you must start with a good design team. And I don't mean good graphic designers, but good Information Architects, interaction designers, XHTML/CSS coders, and even Web Analytics specialists who will make sure your site/app is measurable with clear goals and metrics. I know, it's a lot of $$$, but if you are serious with your business (as I am sure most of us are), we need to get real and invest upfront instead of trying to figure out what went wrong once the whole thing is online.

Muscle

Answer 6

Another topic to research is Heuristics for usability. This can give you general tips to follow. Here's another use of heuristics

Dooryard

Answer 7

If you don't know where to begin, start small. Sit a friend down at your computer. Explain that you want them to accomplish a task using software, and watch everything they do.

It helps to remain silent while they are actually working. Write everything down. "John spent 15 seconds looking at the screen before acting. He moused over the top nav to see if it contained popup menus. He first clicked "About Us" even though it wasn't central to his task." Etc.

Then use the knowledge you gain from this to help you design more elaborate tests. Tests with different users from different knowledge realms. More elaborate tasks and more of them.

Film them. A web-cam mounted on the monitor is a good way to capture where their eyes are moving. A video recorder coming over their shoulder at 45 degrees is a good way to capture an overview. Bonus points if you can time-sync the two. Don't worry if you can't do it all. Do what you can do.

Don't plan your test as if it's the last one you'll ever need and you want to get it perfect. There is no perfect. The only thing approaching perfection is many iteration and much repetition. You can only approach 100% confidence as the number of tests approaches the number of actual users of your software. Usually nobody even gets close to this number, but everybody should be trying to.

And don't forget to re-test people after you incorporated the improvement you saw were needed. Same people, different people, either is ok.

Do what you can do. Don't lament what you can't do. Only lament what you could have tested but didn't.

Isallobar

Answer 8

I am answering very late but I was thinking about asking a similar questions about some ideas. Maybe it is better to keep everything in this question.

I would say that:

• Do not teach people about your app. Let them have fresh eyes.

• Ask them to make some tasks and record their actions with a tool like camstudio http://camstudio.org/

• After the test, ask them to answer so simple questions. Here is my list:

  • What was your first feeling when you accessed the app?
  • Can you define the key concepts that are used by the app?
  • What are the top-3 positive things about the application?
  • What are the top-3 negative things about the application?

What do you think about these ideas?

Laryssa