Usability testing

E-commerce websites that make changes based on usability testing typically see sales uplift of 85%.

That's because usability testing gets you detailed data and insight from customers - data you can use to optimise your website, mobile service or software.

"Watching your usability test of our site was a new and quite shocking experience. As we watched, we realised how we can boost conversion rates. We're going to tackle the design process differently from now on!"
--Andrew Smith, YuppieChef.com

We perform usability testing in South Africa to help businesses gain a competitive edge. We're experienced, easy to work with, cost effective and we use the latest technology.

How we run usability tests

In usability tests, you work with one target user at a time, and give them tasks to try out on your product or prototype. This engages customers deeply, and really uncovers what works and what doesn't.

Here are some of the ways that usability testing makes a difference to your organisation:

• It delivers the type of feedback that designers can use.
  Focus groups give you general feedback, based on quick impressions. Usability tests give you specific details about where people get stuck or confused.
• It tells you what your customers really do, not what they say they do.
  In usability tests we watch what people do, which is more reliable than listening to what they say. Users' opinions and speculations about what they might do in future can lead your business down the wrong track.
• It lets your customers show you how to improve your proposition.
  In usability tests, target customers show you what it's like to interact with your business - or your competitors'. Key players in your organisation can observe first hand which things cause delight, and which cause dismay. It can be a disconcerting experience at first, but it's much more effective than gathering survey data. It gets better results and it makes them very immediate and memorable.
• It lets you iterate towards the right answer.
  You can't design a perfect user interface right first time. That's too hard for even the very best designers. But because usability tests are quick and cheap, you can keep revising and re-testing the design until you get positive customer feedback. Then you can build and launch your product with confidence.

It's no coincidence that many large and successful organisations do usability testing. Here are stories from a couple:

• Google's GMail usability lab
• Usability testing Microsoft Surface

How we run usability tests

Turn-around time for usability test results is typically 10-20 working days. But we can go more quickly once we've all got the hang of working together. Here's how it works...

Step 1: Create the brief. We'll work with you to build a clear picture of your business goals and your target users.

Step 2: Recruit target users. Using a network of market research experts, we find users from your target audience.

Often usability tests will use samples of 6 - 10 users. There's good evidence to show that these small samples produce excellent results, cost-effectively.

Step 3: Prepare the tests. We can usability test a finished product or a prototype. Testing very basic prototypes often delivers the highest impact. It allows the project teams to gather user feedback early on, when it's still cheap to change the design. If you need it, we can help you build a prototype.

Our mobile lab facilities let us capture video of what the users do, and how they react during the session. We can conduct testing in our own offices or in yours, or even in the target users' environments.

Step 4: Run the tests. Usability tests are one-to-one sessions, each about 60-90 minutes long. Tests will often include:

• Contextual questions: How and when might people use the product?
• Comprehension questions: What do people think the interface does?
• Tasks: How well can people achieve specific tasks - ones that we choose and ones they choose themselves.
• Perception questions: How do people rate the interface after using it?

Step 5: Solutions and reporting. We go through what we learned in the tests. For each issue, we create precise, actionable recommendations for the short and long term. For key areas we make sketches showing how the recommendations might look.

We can present results back in a comprehensive report, or a Powerpoint presentation. Or we can do the results and solution design in a workshop with your team - for quick turn around and closer involvement.

Conducting your first usability test feels like a big step. But once you've got used to it, you can start conducting iterative usability testing, very rapidly.