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Gabriel is a UX/UI designer who creates data-driven solutions for web and mobile platforms. He has worked with companies such as Stripe and Goodleap, and his book UX Bites was named “Best New Release” in the design category on Amazon.
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Apple and Microsoft haven’t always hit it out of the park with their product releases.
Microsoft’s Windows 8 was a user experience nightmare (and financial disaster), while Apple’s Newton certainly wasn’t the iPhone we received several years later.
So what went wrong?
A common oversight. In the rush of excitement to release new product features or the next big thing, designers, product managers, and upper management have a tendency to believe that the “build it and they will come” fallacy doesn’t apply to them. And in believing this, a critical opportunity is missed: product validation through user testing.
Facts trump opinions. User testing is a set of methodologies, practices, and tools that help UX designers discover problems early on in the product development lifecycle. Problem discovery can help avoid financial missteps and lead to improved product rollout.
User testing is performed at all stages of the design process, and the most impactful results are achieved using prototypes due to the immediate value given back to the design team. Much of that value is delivered via qualitative and quantitative feedback allowing designers to obtain a more balanced picture of what works and doesn’t work for users.
User testing is sometimes referred to as usability testing, but there is a distinction. User testing is an overarching term that includes usability testing. It asks questions such as, “Does the product fill a need?” or, “Does it solve a problem?”
Usability testing is distinct from user testing in a few ways. The goal of usability testing is to find out if a product performs to user expectations. Usability testing asks, “Can users use the product?” This is associated with heuristic analysis. Heuristic evaluations seek to identify common usability problems of user interfaces.
In both cases, prototypes and mockups can be used for testing; there are no rules that dictate when to use one or the other. However, with user testing in particular, prototypes are the preferred testing method.
User Testing | Usability Testing |
---|---|
Do users need my app? | Can users use my app? |
There are two types of user tests that designers and user researchers can use:
Performing user tests with prototypes provides valuable feedback that designers can use early in the design process to avoid costly mistakes. A major benefit to prototypes is the ability to determine what users consider to be the product’s purpose.
For example, using a five-second test, users are shown a page or product feature for five seconds and then asked to describe it. This is a particularly relevant test given people’s time constraints and the need to understand in a short period of time what a product can or cannot do for them.
Here are a few more potential benefits prototypes offer when used for user testing:
Things were very different before the internet gave us the ability to perform user tests from anywhere, at any time. Generally attributed to sociologist Robert Merton in 1946, the genesis of user testing can be traced back to focus groups.
Merton was a pioneer in the area of group studies. He conducted noteworthy research on the effects of radio broadcasts, as well as army training and morale-boosting films. A few years later, several successful marketing campaigns from Chrysler, Ivory Soap, Barbie, and Betty Crocker were due in part to the golden age of the focus group.
Back then, focus groups and individual user testing had to be conducted in large rooms with expensive video and sound equipment, two-way mirrors, and specialized rooms called “usability labs.” Apple had one, so did IBM as well as many others.
By the end of the 1990s, focus groups had fallen out of favor. Broadband internet spread like wildfire, and researchers started to rely on video-based interactions for user testing. The rest, as they say, is history.
Nowadays, designers have a more robust toolset for user testing prototypes. Here are a few popular tools used at different stages of the design process:
User testing, unlike usability testing, typically seeks to validate the need for a product, and in doing so, forges a different path. We aren’t asking, “Can users use this product?” as with a test such as a heuristic evaluation. Designers and user researchers use methods such as online user testing and focus groups to find out if the product solves an actual problem.
Here are a few best practices and tips for performing user tests:
Is it possible to avoid product disasters like Microsoft’s Windows 8 or Apple’s failed Newton? Yes—by ensuring that user testing is a part of design early in the process. To many, user testing and usability testing share no clear distinction, but it is important to understand their difference.
User testing validates the need for a product, while usability testing validates whether the product is usable. There are several useful tools that can be utilized to perform user testing, but the one thing in common is the use of prototypes as a mechanism for gathering feedback. User testing prototypes save time, money, and resources and will ultimately result in better, more successful products.
User testing is performed either in person or online using one of several user testing tools. The designer sets up a series of questions, tasks, or activities and users perform them while being observed.
User testing in UX is finding out if a product fills a need. This can be accomplished using online focus groups, user testing tools and apps, and direct observation.
User testing is important so that the right products reach the right people at the right time and place. It is also important in order to avoid product failure.
A user interview is best conducted either in person or via video. It’s important to read nonverbal language and record observations objectively.
We need usability testing to tell us whether a user can actually use a product or app. Usability testing can identify costly problems early on in the product life cycle.
Bucharest, Romania
Member since June 8, 2017
Gabriel is a UX/UI designer who creates data-driven solutions for web and mobile platforms. He has worked with companies such as Stripe and Goodleap, and his book UX Bites was named “Best New Release” in the design category on Amazon.
PREVIOUSLY AT
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