Why Should You Perform Usability Testing?

By Author: Michael Wade
Total Articles: 67
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The main purpose behind usability testing is to test the ease with which the different interfaces in the application can be used. It helps to understand if the software application is user-friendly or not. It is a form of black-box testing, which gives an idea of the user’s interaction with the application.
The design interface is an important element when it comes to user experience, as it establishes the initial reaction the users will have when they first come across the site.
After design, the functionality of the website requires a thorough testing. This testing needs to be performed at the beginning. Bugs found later on are time taking and expensive to fix.
A usability testing consists of the following five components.
- Learnability: This defines the ease of use of the basic tasks in the application or website based on the current design.
- Efficiency: This defines how fast a user is able to accomplish the various tasks in the application.
- Memorability: This defines if a returning user is able to retain the functionality of the application once he returns to the application after a long period of time.
- Errors: This parameter defines how many errors a user is likely to make while using the app and how easily they can recover from it and continue their interaction.
- Satisfaction: This parameter describes how satisfied a user is after using the application. This is obvious through their frequency of usage and interactions.
Benefits of Usability Testing –
- Usability Testing can be molded to cover many other types of testing such as functionality testing, unit testing, integration testing, smoke testing, etc.
- If it is planned properly, it can be very economical, highly effective and beneficial.
- A thorough usability testing service helps to uncover all the potential bugs in the system, which may not be visible to the developers while development and escapes the different kinds of testing.
- Usability testing can help to fix all the issues that a user may face even before the entire system is made live. This results in a better performance and an efficient system.
- Participants can be invited to take a usability test for a remote task based usability testing..
- A remote unmoderated usability testing can get a representation for user segments from all across the world.
- Remote usability studies can be executed before and after every sprint. These studies provide accurate metrics and helps to improve and deliver what the users require.
- Testing various versions provides a qualitative feedback on the early prototypes and gives an idea if the information architecture and the layout are able to convey the
Conclusion
Usability Testing allows the design and the development team to find bugs before they are reported by the end users. It is a very wide area of testing and requires a fair understanding of this field. Testers involved in usability testing need to have good observation skills in order to be able to detect and fix the issues and problems.