15 Tips For Effective Usability Testing In India

Usability Testing- An Introduction & Tips for Effective Usability Testing in India By Abhay Rautela ConeTrees.com , UXQuotes.com , TheUXBookmark.com , @conetrees

Agenda
Introduction
Usability?
What is Usability Testing?
Why conduct Usability Testing?
When and What to perform Usability Testing on?
How many users to test?
The Usability Testing Process
Applicability
Tips for Effective Usability Testing in India
Questions & Feedback

What is Usability?
Usability is what you may know as user friendliness- ease of use
Usability is used in context of any object or a product a human might interact with
A product with good usability is one that is:
Effective- in helping the user accomplishing their goal for which they are using the product
Efficient (can help the user accomplish their goals goal quickly)
Satisfying to use
Easy to approach and low error rate and criticality

What is Usability Testing
Usability Testing is a methodology
To evaluate how easy a product is to use
By giving tasks that are commonly performed or intended to be performed on the product
To people who are representative of the product’s target audience
Types
Formative/ Exploratory
Summative/ Assessment/ Verification or Validation
Towards the beginning of the PDLC, it’s good if you can conduct usability tests on your competitions’ products

When and What to perform Usability Testing on
You can and should test at most phases of the PDLC/ SDLC:
Requirements Gathering
Design
Development
Testing
Release

When and What to perform Usability Testing on
2. You can test from concept to ready product
Prototype
Level of detail
Lo-fi to hi-fi (paper to interactive)
Length and breadth of functionality
Horizontal- all features, limited functionality
Vertical- limited feature(s), full functionality within those feature(s)
Product
Section
Complete

How many users?
Research (Virzi, 1992, Nielsen & Landauer,1993) indicates that 5 users uncover approximately 80% of a product’s usability problems
Other research suggest different numbers
The Truth: It depends
A simple answer:
For those interested in DIY usability testing: 5 is good to uncover an appreciable number of usability issues in
Increasing number of participants means significant increase in time and cost due to increased complexity of planning, participant management and data analysis amongst other factors
Else consult with experienced professionals

Why conduct Usability Testing
In order to make a product user friendly you need to uncover usability issues in it
You can’t do that on you own since:
You might not be the end user
Even if you belong to the target audience, you are probably not of the same user expertise level as most of or a section of the users are.
You need to validate you assumptions
Make informed decisions. Have data by your side and make decisions on facts, not hunches or opinions

The benefits of Usability Testing
Being penny wise, pound foolish does not pay. Don’t look at saving a few days because of which you end up overshooting your plan by months
Speed up development and cut costs by getting it right in the least time and money possible by making it easy to use for the user and designed in a way that best helps them accomplish their goals
PDLC integration: To continually identify and act upon usability issues throughout the process at a low cost rather than trying to at the end when it is more or less impossible

The Usability Testing Process
Plan
Participant Recruitment
Scenario/ Task creation
Pilot Test
Execution/ Test sessions
Data Analysis
Report
Checkpoint

Applicability
Specifically applies to:
Usability testing in India in organizations following an Agile SDLC
More towards participants belonging to or residing in metros
You should be interested if you are in India and:
Are interested in learning about usability testing or are a usability engineer
A product manager interested in learning about usability testing
A start up interested in how usability testing can benefit your product
Even if you are outside India:
You should still be able to derive value from the tips if you are conducting usability tests in countries outside India

Applicability of Usability Testing Tips
Why tips on India are different from the books?
India has a different cultural system as compared to the west
Culture
Value system
Language
Ways of working and interfacing with people
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
There is a distinction between the working of Indian internet companies and multinational corporations or foreign firms

Tip 1 (Planning) Create a Plan that Will be Read
Suggest plan formats to the stakeholders
Finally, create a plan according to their preference

Tip 2 (Planning) Participant Compensation that Works
Kids- Toys, Chocolates, Confectionary
School- Movie tickets, Cash
College- Cash, Movie tickets, Shoppers Stop/ Life Style Coupons, Big Bazaar coupons
Working Professionals- Lunch/ Dinner coupons, Shoppers Stop/ Life Style Coupons, Big Bazaar coupons
Elders- Big Bazaar coupons
Recruitment during festival season is tough. Reverse the flow by offering festival related gifts as compensation instead of the usual

Tip 3 (Recruitment) Talk like the User
When calling prospective participants over the phone, speak in the language you feel the user is comfortable in, and can communicate and understand better to increase your chances of recruitment.
When the person at the other end is comfortable with you, and more importantly gets some feeling of trust, the better your chances or successful recruitment
Mix language and use slang when appropriate
Empathize with all users
Affection with children and respect to the elderly is required and just as beneficial

Tip 4 (Execution) Record using Inbuilt Laptop Camera
Inbuilt laptop cameras are hardly noticeable*
Reduce awkwardness and intimidation for the camera conscious, especially effective with participants from non-metros
Decrease introduction of bias, increase accuracy of test results
* The user must be briefed about recording them. Their permission is required before proceeding. Get a CDA/ NDA signed.

Tip 5 (Execution) Simulate as much as possible
Use a bandwidth shaper
E.g.- You might want to limit speed to 56 kbps if this is the internet speed available to most of your users rather than using high speed internet connectivity available at your office
Same goes for OS, browsers and resolution

Tip 6 (Execution) Use ‘Think Aloud’ only if Appropriate
Use ‘Think Aloud’ protocol only if participants are able to adapt to it easily,
Feels unnatural for many thus increasing bias
Adds to the pressure and increases bias, may affect performance
Retrospective evaluation is an alternative but is time consuming

Tip 7 (Execution) Speak & Dress like the participant
Try and dress like your participants, don’t be intimidating
Speak in the language you feel the participant is comfortable in, and can communicate and understand better to increase your chances of recruitment
This will help decrease bias introduced due to intimidation or awkwardness
The more comfortable the participant, the more your chances of accurate results
Caution! Don’t hand the reins over to the user

Tip 8 (Execution) Stakeholders as observers
Let the stakeholders get a first hand experience of how the user actually uses the product
Observation by stakeholders will help increases transparency and their belief validity of a methodology they are new to
If they can not be observers, provide access to all the video recordings of the sessions or even better, a highlights video
Stakeholders observing participants is more influential in them understanding usability issues rather than handing out a report

Tip 9 (Execution) Usability testing at Elders homes
In the field, try to restrict team to 2 members
One facilitator and one observer is good enough
Let them know how many will be coming in advance
Show your ID/ business card- Most elders are not comfortable with the idea of strangers entering their homes

Tip 10 (Reporting) Prioritization also by LOE
Prioritize by criticality and frequency of issues so stakeholders can decide on incorporation as required
When time and resources are scarce, stakeholders will pick recommendations requiring least effort to implement

Tip 11 (Reporting) Provide quotes in original language
Don’t translate quotes in English. When you translate a quote, you loose quality of the insight gained through it. (Think JPG- lossy)
You can provide a translation (in the rarer case) that you have stakeholders who don’t understand the language the quote is in

Tip 12 (Reporting) Create a Report that will be read
Discuss in advance the format of the report with stakeholders offering suggestions to them on it
Don’t deliver the report in a format that the stakeholder won’t read
Avoid an unpleasant surprise with a format that contains or misses out on information (and sorting) that the stakeholders wanted

Tip 13 (Reporting) Present Report
Submitting it does not guarantee it being read or stakeholders acting upon it
Always try and present the report
To ensure comprehension of the entire report to stakeholders
To understand why certain recommendations can not be incorporated
To prevent information distortion

Tip 14- Checkpoint
It is not uncommon in an Agile SDLC to see reports disappear over time without any incorporation of agreed recommendations
Checkpoint at appropriate intervals of time to keep track of and follow through on recommendations agreed to be incorporated

Tip 15: Overall Process
Involve stakeholders/ Product Department
Absolutely important if usability is just beginning to get recognized in your organization or you are part of the few who are part of the group busy evangelizing
A must if you are at
Stage 2 to 5 of Nielsen’s Corporate Usability Maturity
Why?
They make or break usability within the organization
Ultimately, they give the nod, allocate resources and budget for usability
If you shut doors on them, they can shut you down since you are probably conducting usability tests because they are allowing you to

Questions?

Feedback

Thank you Website: http://www.conetrees.com Email: hello at conetrees dot com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/conetrees Useful Quotes on User Experience: http://www.uxquotes.com The UX Practitioners’ resource: http://www.theuxbookmark.com

Join the UX Book Club, New Delhi http://uxbookclub.org/doku.php?id=new_delhi As creator and lead coordinator of the UX Book Club, New Delhi, I’d like you to consider joining us if you are work in user experience in and around New Delhi Join the SlideShare Accessibility Group slideshare.com/group/web-accessibility View and share useful presentations on web accessibility- Join the group

http://www.conetrees.com	3257
http://mylettetorres.blogspot.com	54
http://www.slideshare.net	27
url_unknown	13
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	7
http://do.notuse.me	3
http://www.killester.melb.catholic.edu.au	3
http://www.lmodules.com	2
http://askqtp.blogspot.com	2
http://killester.catholic.edu.au	2
http://wildfire.gigya.com	1
http://static.slideshare.net	1
file://	1
http://mylettetorres.blogspot.in	1

15 Tips For Effective Usability Testing In India

by Abhay Rautela on Mar 02, 2009

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

14 Embeds 3,374

Statistics

15 Tips For Effective Usability Testing In India — Presentation Transcript