This week we looked at the fundamentals of usability testing, the importance of user testing, and test strategies, that we can use within our project.
In the Double diamond, we are into the second diamond stage, starting to look at branding, design and testing. User testing can be completed multiple times throughout the process, it is extremely important to complete user testing, if user testing is not completed your work might not be usable and could go to waste. User testing allows you to see the product through an actual users eyes, you can see how they interact with the product which will improve your design.
Usability testing is method used to find problems within a design and find out how to improve them to benefit users. User testing helps us as designers understand our users better as we can analyse how they behave or use a product, and see what they prefer and improve their experience. User testing lets us see where the problems arise and how the user tries to get around the issue themselves.
Usability Testing: What It Is, Benefits, and How to Do It
When researching the techniques used to carry out a successful usability test, there were a few results that surprised me and made me think. Below are some of the tasks to be considered before completing the test:
Write Better Qualitative Usability Tasks
In class we completed a few tasks in groups, we were asked to look at some problems users may have navigating through the plant spot wireframes we completed a few weeks ago. We had to write a research goal and then some problems they may encounter when trying to reach this goal. Our wireframes explained how a user may find care advice for a plant, this was our research goal. Then we noted some problems the user will face when navigating through our wireframes.
We then completed some user testing, by one person being a facilitator and then another a user. As the user was trying to reach the goal of what the facilitator was asking them we were able to see what problems the user was facing and where they were unsure or hesitant to click certain buttons. Our findings were a majority of our users were asked to find where there connected plants where, the image on the home screen would take them here, however as there was no title majority of users clicked the plant pot. This took the to a different screen therefore it wasn't clear to them where they were meant to click.
User Testing is definitely not something I am familiar with and haven't really used in past projects, mainly because I wasn't sure how to do this. I am really shocked that I haven't completed a user test before in past project. The exercise we completed really helped allow me to understand that it doesn't have to be serious and all you need to do is simply ask casually if someone will test your project. I found this to be a really insightful exercise into the problems users could have using your project, therefore I will definitely be using this within my project. The analysis stage was particularly interesting as it showed how small user behaviours can point to bigger design problems. Overall, this class helped me appreciate the thought that goes into creating products, and I definitely feel more confident in my ability to conduct usability testing in the future.