Five thoughts on usability testing

Five thoughts on

　　usability testing Usability testing (Usability testing) is a method used to evaluate a product or system. This method originated from classical experimentation and can be used for complex large-sample tests or simple small-sample qualitative tests. test. Regarding the specific content of the usability test (5W+1H), there are already a lot of information on the Internet, including Chinese and English. I thought about it, and here, instead of writing universal popular science articles, I decided to extract some personal thoughts from the usability testing projects I did recently and share them with you.
　　These reflections will be broken down into five points: (1) Pre-testing; (2) Invite stakeholders as much as possible; (3) Adjust scripts in time; (4) Prioritize usability issues; (5) Pay attention to positive user reviews . Among them (1) and (2) are the preparations before usability testing, (3) are the things to pay attention to during the usability testing, and (4) and (5) are the things to pay attention to after the usability testing is over. Below is an overview of before, during, and after usability testing. 　　Before
　　Usability Testing Pretesting Pretesting is a simulated test that is arranged before the formal usability test. The main purpose of pre-testing is to ensure that the hardware and software under test are functioning properly, the script is clear, the task is feasible, and the interview questions are designed reasonably and clearly. If these problems are encountered, adjustments and modifications should be made in time, which can avoid some invalid tests or possible errors, thereby reducing the time cost. 　　For the pre-test, you can find a colleague around you, but this colleague cannot be a relevant person involved in product development and design. You can consider non-product-related personnel such as administration and logistics. After the test and interview, you can give certain gifts or treat yourself to a meal. 　　Invite relevant parties to participate 　　as Product-related personnel may include but are not limited to designers, product managers, R&D, operations, etc. Before conducting usability testing, inform relevant parties as far in advance as possible of the time and place of testing, and invite relevant parties to participate in on-site observation.





　　Inviting relevant parties to participate on-site is mutually beneficial and win-win: for user research, this is one of the ways that the user research report is finally understood and recognized by relevant parties, and it is also conducive to the follow-up work of user research; Very aware that it is possible to observe behaviors or attitudes that the moderator did not notice during the test, which can lead to further enlightenment.
　　Due to different companies, projects and needs, the people invited are different. What needs to be clear here is to invite suitable people to observe the test on the spot. For example, my previous project was originally an interaction designer who wanted to inspect each function point and page layout of a certain page, and finally invited 3 interaction designers, of course, also Product managers and R&D personnel corresponding to this page can be invited. If interested parties are really interested, but cannot come temporarily due to some reasons, you can use some commercial software to share remote recording and playback. 　　Adjusting scripts in time
　　during usability testing After running usability testing a few times, you may find that some issues we think are important may not be so important, and some issues we think are not very important are even necessary. Or it is found that users are confused and puzzled about a relatively broad issue. Or find some common trends among users and want to know about them. At this time, we should adjust the script in time to add or delete some content, instead of continuing to follow the original script. 　　Qualitative research is exploratory research, the purpose of which is to build a theory. With the progress of tests and interviews, some new ideas will be generated, and the theoretical framework constructed will become clearer and clearer. At this time, the original script needs to be detailed. change. 　　If possible, we can adjust the script accordingly after each usability test. Although this method will be relatively tiring, it may bring us more information. 　　After usability testing Prioritization of 　　usability issues 　　After testing, a series of usability issues will be discovered. Ideally, each issue would like to be resolved before the product goes live, but this is unrealistic. Which issues should be resolved first? What problems were solved afterward? At this point, these issues need to be prioritized to rationally arrange the order of iteration and development.







　　Regarding the prioritization of usability issues, there are many different evaluation indicators and grading standards in the world. This article will not repeat them. You can refer to my previous article [Priority Evaluation of Usability Issues]. What I want to say here is that no model is universal, we need to find the model that best fits our own product, and of course, modify the metrics or ratings appropriately as needed.
　　It should be noted that the prioritization of problems obtained by usability testing is the result given by user researchers based on user testing, and this priority order is not the actual priority order of product development. First of all, there must be a certain difference between the user's perception of the product and the perception of the product by the product-related personnel. Secondly, the solution of these problems also needs to consider the design cycle, development cycle, business cost and so on. Therefore, Yingyan should work with the product team to understand the importance of these issues from the user's perspective, and then let the relevant personnel decide the actual priority order.
　　Pay attention to the positive comments of users
　　Usability testing can detect some problems with a product or system, but if a usability testing report is full of problems, it is conceivable that product related parties or stakeholders will be emotionally uncomfortable. When I think about what I have worked so hard to make, it is useless to be criticized.
　　In usability testing, when users mention one or some advantages of the product, we also need to write them down and mention them in the report after the fact, especially some advantages that have been mentioned many times. There are two advantages to doing this: First, for the recipient of the report - product related parties or stakeholders, it will not be so psychologically frustrated, and feel a neutral attitude of Yingyan (both advantages and disadvantages), It will be conducive to the follow-up cooperation and communication of the user research. Two, to draw attention to these many-mentioned advantages, so as not to be lost in subsequent iterations.
I have seen usability test reports made by different people during my internship, and everyone’s reports are different. It can be said that there is no absolute standard and correct method for reporting usability test results. Present the report.
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