Testing Theory Knowledge 6: Usability Testing/User Experience Testing

1. Usability (or user experience) testing

Usability testing is also called user experience testing. In this text, usability testing will be explained.

Usability testing is basically black box testing.

In software development, programmers mainly focus on the implementation of functions and performance, and do not pay much attention to usability. However, from a user perspective, the usability/user experience of a software is the most direct. This is something developers often overlook.

2. Basic elements of usability testing

The basic elements of usability are generally the responsibility of the product manager, but as a test engineer, it is also beneficial to understand the following basic elements.

1. Does every user interaction design take into account the end user's understanding, educational background, and environmental pressures?

2. Is the program's output meaningful, free of insulting words, and ambiguous?

3. Is the error message used for error diagnosis straightforward and easy to understand, or does it require a PhD in computer science to understand it?

4. Does the user interface maintain conceptual consistency, internal coherence, and grammatical consistency? Does it comply with the agreed usage habits, semantic and syntactic rules, format, style, and abbreviation habits?

5. Does a software system that requires high precision and accuracy provide sufficiently effective input validation?

6. Does the system contain too many options, or does it contain options that will not be used?

7. Is the system able to respond promptly to input from the user?

8. Is the program easy to use?

9. Is the software designed to help users input accurately?

10. Can the user's actions be easily repeated?

11. Are users sure they can switch back and forth among the many functions and menus without accidents?

12. Does the functional implementation of the software meet the design specifications?

3. Usability testing process

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, usability testing is a black box test, so the overall testing process should be consistent with black box testing.

Taking a common scenario as an example, the commonly used test process is as follows:

1. Locate a customer's record and modify it.

2. Locate a company's record and modify it.

3. Create a new company record.

4. Delete a company record.

5. Generate a list of companies of a certain type.

6. Print the list.

7. Select a batch of contacts and export to a text file or spreadsheet file.

8. Import a contact information file from another system.

9. Add a photo to one or more of the records.

10. Create and save a customized report.

11. Customized menu.