This document provides an overview of usability testing from Stephanie Pratt of UXPA DC. It defines usability and its importance, how to set up and conduct a usability test, and tips for moderating a test. Key points include: - Usability is how easy a product is to use, defined by criteria like effectiveness, efficiency and ease of learning. - Usability testing evaluates a product's usability by observing users complete tasks. It identifies problems and improves the product. - To set up a test, identify tasks, recruit 5-10 participants, develop a script, and practice moderation skills. When moderating, keep questions neutral and let the participant think aloud.

1. USABILITY TESTING
UXPA DC UX 101 Intensive Workshop – May 1, 2015
Stephanie M. Pratt, UXPA DC Secretary
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2. Who is Stephanie?
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3. WHAT IS USABILITY?
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4. What is usability?
• Usability is how easy a product, website, object, etc. is to
use.
• 5 E’s of Usability:
• Effective
• Efficient
• Engaging
• Error Tolerant
• Easy to Learn
(Whitney Quesenbery [2004] “Balancing the 5Es: Usability)
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5. WHY IS USABILITY
IMPORTANT?
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6. Why is usability important?
• If your website/product/item is not usable, your
users/audience won’t be able to complete their tasks.
• Your users/audience will then be searching for ways to get
help or searching for alternative product/resource that is
more usable
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7. What is usability testing?
• A research method to evaluate how usable a product,
object, website, etc. is.
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8. What’s involved?
• Your participant perform meaningful tasks to reach a goal
• Participants are ideally your target users
• Moderator (you or other team member)
• Observers (you, design team, stakeholders, clients)
• Recording data for analysis
• Minimum – recording screen / audio
• Quantitative– clicks, error rate, task success rate, etc.
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9. What can I test?
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10. When should I test?
• As early as possible
• Even with sketches or physical prototypes
• As often as possible
• Return on Investment of Usability Testing:
• Save on development time
• Less time to train new users
• Less support calls / emails
• More people complete their intended tasks
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11. How do I Setup a Usability Test?
• Identify key tasks that you are most interested in learning
about for that task
• What makes a good task?
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12. Example Tasks
• Purchase/order a product
• Shop for auto insurance
• Book an appointment
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13. Exercise: Develop Tasks (5-10 min)
• Imagine you want to test the usability of your smartphone.
• Breakup into teams of two and come up with 2-3 tasks
you would want to test on your smartphone(s)
• Write them down to use as part of a test script
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14. What’s next?
• We need to develop the test script with those tasks.
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15. What’s in a test script?
• An introduction, to explain what is going to happen to the
participant/tester
• Explain that they are not being tested and can’t make any mistakes
• Initial questions to understand their experience with web or
product
• E.g., How many hours a week do you use the internet for work and
personal use?
• E.g., What is your favorite website?
• E.g., How often do you do [something related to product]
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16. What’s in a test script?
• Explain think aloud protocol to the participant
• Have the participant/tester think out loud as they go through the tasks
• Cue yourself to record the computer screen or session
• Tasks
• You may potentially need to give a scenario to put the tester in the
mindset of completing the tasks.
• Follow up questions
• E.g., Single Ease Question (for each task) 1-7 scale
• E.g., Confidence of completing task(s), 1-7 scale
• E.g., Open ended (balanced) questions
• Thanking participant/tester
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17. Exercise: Develop Short Test Script (5-10
min)
• Take your tasks and create a short test script
• Add an introduction & a couple intro questions
• We will be using your test script to run a quick test.
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18. OK, I have a test script. What now?
• We need to recruit participants
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19. How do I get participants?
• Fast Recruitment
• Use Colleagues
• Coffee Shops (offer to buy a coffee for a short test)
• Co-testing Meetups
• Metro stations, Bus stops
• Longer more specialized recruitment
• Customers / Users – recruit through email/web
• Craigslist/flyers/newspaper ads for representative users
• Hire recruiters to help you get representative users
• Recruit representative users from your network
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20. How many participants do I need?
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Nielsen Norman Group

21. How do I compensate participants?
• Swag – T-shirts, reusable bags, pens, etc.
• Cash
• Gift Cards
• Promotions (discounts)
• Sometimes, if helping to improve the product is enough
for the tester, you don’t need to give anything
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22. Scheduled the Participants. What now?
• Prepare to run the test
• Practice moderation skills
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23. How to moderate
• The tester/participant does the majority of the talking
• Think therapist / guide
• Keep a poker face
• Don’t let them know if they are right or wrong
• Keep all questions unbiased
• Think “40 Year Old Virgin”
• Respond to a question with a question
• Typical questions:
• “What are you thinking?”
• “Was that what you expected or not what you expected?”
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24. How to moderate
If they… Say..
Are not talking “What are you thinking?”
Ask you a question (e.g., “Is that what
I should do here?”)
Rephrase the question (e.g., “What do
you think you should do?”)
Get a task right or wrong “Thank you, that is very helpful”
“Thanks for the feedback”
Mess up “Remember, you can’t make any
mistakes” “You’re doing a great job”
Are unsure if they have completed a
task and ask you.
“Is this what you would do if you were
doing X at home?”
Criticize the design “Thanks for the feedback”
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25. Exercise: Run a Quick Usability Test
• Find another team and run a quick usability test on your
phone with other folks in the room
• Follow your test script & have them complete 1 of your
tasks
• Switch – so everyone is a participant or moderator at least
once.
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26. Additional Resources
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27. THANK YOU!
@stephaniempratt
smpratt01@gmail.com
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