Key Steps for Usability Testing in Product Design
A picture of someone holding a sticky note. Image source: David Travis on Unsplash
User testing is a central aspect of an effective product design approach. That is, if you intend for the design to be ultimately successful.
Why?
User research equips you with the necessary information about the user problems with the design elements. You gain critical insights into user behavior. This information is key to modifying the functionality of the product design. It is also the only way to validate the usability hypothesis around building your entire design. The core objective of usability testing is to help you develop a user-centric design. An ideal usability testing approach should focus on user interactions with the individual elements and the design as a whole.
Before we look at the steps for a key successful usability testing, it’s important to understand how product designs are created.
How Are Prototypes of Product Designs Created?
There are many ways prototypes can be created, but the most common one nowadays is by using a 3D modeling software. There are various 3D modeling software available that one can use to prepare prototypes, but I would recommend SelfCAD. SelfCAD is an easy to use product design software that has been designed for users of all levels.
SelfCAD has a simplified interface and powerful tools that can help you prepare both simple, minimalistic, and complex prototypes. After you are done preparing your prototypes in a 3D design software, the next thing will be preparing it for 3D printing. In most cases, one usually has to switch to another software to slice the design. But with SelfCAD, you don’t have to switch to another external software in order to slice your design. SelfCAD has an in-built slicer that you can use to slice your model without having to use any other external software. You can then generate the 3D printable file that you can send to your 3D printer for 3D printing.
After 3D printing, the prototype can be used to visualize how the final product will look like. Flaws and errors can be identified earlier on and even be fixed in a 3D design software before the actual design starts.
6 Steps to Successful Usability Testing
Usability testing is often required multiple times during the development of a design. If poorly planned, you might find yourself frustrated by the need to constantly change the direction of your design after each unsuccessful testing phase. Product designers have to be extra attentive with every step of this valuable practice with so much riding on usability.
This post logically marks the steps for how to conduct successful usability testing. This way, as a product designer, you will have some familiar landmarks on your road to successful usability testing. Hopefully, you can attain critical feedback and avoid retracing your steps, with this guide.
Let's dive right in!
1. Plan an effective usability test
Successful usability testing relies heavily on a solid plan to give it a firm foundation. This is the stage where you consolidate the test objectives regarding the product manager, marketing team, stakeholders, engineers, and most importantly, the client. In practice, this planning phase often involves pulling insights from multiple systems, such as CRM dashboards, analytics platforms, or salesforce automation tools, alongside other internal workflows that help teams align goals and measure outcomes. You will develop defined test objectives against which your design performance will be measured for efficiency. You want to find out the most likely user questions for your design at this stage, so the testing can be designed to eliminate each of these questions as a mark of the efficiency of the design.
A man planning something on a computer. Image source: Unsplash
For instance, if you are designing a mobile application, what are the questions you need to answer to satisfy the performance standards of the API. You may use the following questions to form the strategy for testing at this phase.
Completion of Task flow —
- Are there any roadblocks that stop the users before they can complete the task?
- How far into the task flow do the roadblocks appear?
Time of Completion —
- How long does it take to complete one task flow?
Efficiency —
- Can the users easily interact with the product design?
- What aspects of the task flow are confusing to the user or superfluous to the task completion?
These questions will help you detect the errors in the design through the user experience. You can understand the nature of the errors and decide whether to modify or remove the feature from the product design.
2. Choose your ideal testing method
Idea testing models. Image source: Notion.so
The planning phase gives you clarity on what you want to understand from the testing results. Following that, you need to choose the testing method that most effectively helps you achieve your testing objectives. Some methods focus on identifying bottlenecks in the design task flow without satisfactorily revealing the reason for their occurrence.
An ideal usability testing guide might be a combination of more than one testing method. Some common testing methods can be:
A/B testing — You will give your users two different versions of your product design to compare the results of each performance. You require more participants to divide them into two groups for this method. In addition, you need to have two versions of your design ready for testing to implement this method.
Remote testing — In this case, you need to provide the user with the demo version of the product. Further, they are allowed to use it in the natural settings of their home or work. This puts the user at ease and enables the product to interact with the user where they will most likely need the assistance. The testing is more cost-effective because you are not bound to any facility. However, the choice to moderate the testing is entirely up to the product designer.
Tracking Eye movement — You need eye-tracking software to follow the pattern of eye movement from the users when they are interacting with your product design. The data collected from this test helps understand the areas that attract user attention and any difficulties the users have in finding the relevant features within the interface.
3. Prepare your Product Design Prototype for Testing
An illustration of a prototype of an app. Image source: uxpin.com
Usability testing is vital in the primary development stages of the design purely to work out the kinks at each stage. At this stage, the product is not ready, but by the time the product design reaches the final development stage, most errors should have been identified and modified. You need to do this to avoid the stress of redesigning the product at an advanced stage of development.
However, without a product, the testing cannot be done at any stage. A product prototype is a workable solution for this problem. This is a version of the product with a limited range of functionalities. However, the prototype should mirror the original objectives of the finished product. That is the only way the usability testing will give you viable information to affect the product development.
Build the product demo around the features that are most critical to your testing objectives. To ensure a smooth testing experience, stick to the questions you developed in the planning phase. Keep the prototype light for a faster and smoother testing completion.
4. Find users for testing
Before entering this stage, you must have well-defined selection criteria to recruit representative users for UAT testing. Draw up a profile for your ideal target user as an archetype to match potential users. You do not need a deep user pool to identify and censure the key problems with your design. Categorize your potential user recruits into key segments according to their persona’s features that best reflect your target user. These features could include age, educational background, gender, profession, location, and technical characteristics.
Potential recruits that are not knowledgeable about your product make the best testing subjects. People who are aware of your product might be biased towards some features. This might inhibit the task flow and hamper the results of the testing. Avoid recruiting colleagues and their acquaintances as test subjects as they may disturb the reliability of your test results.
Finally, you need an experienced test moderator to help you guide the test through the entire task flow. You will also need test observers to monitor and note the entire process of the user performances. These notes are equally critical information as the ultimate results of the testing.
5. Conduct the Usability Test
A person working on their laptop. Image source: Koruux.com
How you ask the users to complete each task is vital to the success of the usability testing. Depending on your testing method, you can choose an ideal place to conduct the test without any distractions. Plan a tryout before the actual testing to identify logistical issues that might later intervene in a smooth testing process. During the test, avoid any unnecessary interaction with the test subjects outside of the testing process. None of your questions should lead to a likely opinion or influence their answers in any way. Design your questions to be detached and only demand an objective answer.
Usability testing intends to complete the task flow and identify the roadblocks in completion. You are not looking for feedback at this stage, so design your list of questions to stick to the main intent of the process.
6. Analyze the Test and Repeat
Summarize the notes from the observers and the outcome of the testing cycles for each user. At this stage, the product designers need to collaborate with the product managers and developers to make sense of the test documentation.
- How have the users responded to each aspect of the task flow?
- What are the focal issues that need immediate attention?
- Did the results validate your core design hypothesis?
Once you have consolidated your findings, the design and development team needs to work closely to rank the issues in order of priority and realize the most feasible solutions or actions to improve the user experience immediately. The analysis should modify the product design and repeat the testing to ensure that you have resolved the core issue.
Conclusion
Too many product designs offer equally lucrative features and functionality. Users lose nothing if they switch products to your competitors. However, if product designers understand the core concepts of usability, the information obtained from user testing can help drive their design process. A user-centric approach will reduce the time it takes to retest the design. The result is a user-friendly design that feels effortless and saves time and energy for your users. Ultimately, it will give your product design an edge over your competitors, exponentially increasing your chances for success.
We hope you found the article enlightening. Shout out to us if you have any queries or concerns.
About the Author
Atreyee Chowdhury works full-time as a Content Manager with a Fortune 1 retail giant. Are you looking to scale your content needs fast? You can reach her at atreyee.c@gmail.com for any content writing/copywriting requirements. She is passionate about writing and helped many small and medium-scale businesses achieve their content marketing goals with her compelling content. She loves to read, travel, and experiment with different cuisines in her free time.
Enjoy powerful modeling, rendering, and 3D printing tools without the steep learning curve.
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