UI/UX Testing is also known as usability testing. Why is usability testing important? It helps to understand how people interact with your product. What does “usable” mean?

“It means making sure that something works well: that a person of average ability and experience can use the thing—whether it’s a website, a toaster, or a revolving door — for its intended purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated.”

What is Usability Testing?

• Usability Testing also known as User Experience(UX) Testing, is a testing method for measuring how easy and user-friendly a software application is. A small set of target end-users, use software application to expose usability defects.

• A user should interact with a digital product without frustration and easily accomplish set goals.

  

What is the purpose of usability testing?

• Aesthetics and design are important. How well a product looks usually determines how well it works.

• There are many software applications/websites, which miserably fail, once launched, due to following reasons –

  • Where do I click next?
  • Which page needs to be navigated?
  • Which Icon represents what?
  • Error messages are not consistent or effectively displayed
  • Session time not sufficient.

• The goal of this testing is to satisfy users and it mainly concentrates on the following parameters of a system:

  The effectiveness of the system

  • Is the system is easy to learn?
  • Is the system useful and adds value to the target audience?
  • Are Content, Color, Icons, Images used are aesthetically pleasing?

  Efficiency

  • Little navigation should be required to reach the desired screen or webpage, and scrollbars should be used infrequently.
  • Uniformity in the format of screen/pages in your application/website.
  • Option to search within your software application or website.

  Accuracy

  • No outdated or incorrect data like contact information/address should be present.
  • No broken links should be present.

  User Friendliness

  • Controls used should be self-explanatory and must not require training to operate
  • Help should be provided for the users to understand the application/website

• Alignment with the above goals helps in effective usability testing

How to do Usability Testing: Complete Process

• Planning:- During this phase the goals of usability test are determined by the UX Researchers. Having volunteers sit in front of your application and recording their actions is not a goal. You need to determine critical functionalities and objectives of the system. You need to assign tasks to your testers, which exercise these critical functionalities. During this phase, the usability testing method, number & demographics of usability testers, test report formats are also determined