How it works

Usability testing puts your design through realistic scenarios with users who typical would use your software or website. We have found over the years that what users 'Say' they want is very different than how they behave. The goal of this test is to validate true user behavior.

How we do it

Test Prep / Recruiting

We'll work with you to understand your user profiles and then recruit people who match the profiles you want to test. We're experienced in recruiting all types of people from typical consumers to specialized medical and legal professionals. We'll provide guidance, the forms and a process to ensure test participants complete the required legal documentation, show up on time and are compensated at the end of the test. We'll also work with you to develop a set of test scenarios that addresses key user tasks of known concern. As an optional service, we can help you put together interactive prototypes to validate your design concepts prior to coding.

We've often found it is more cost effective to perform a Rapid Review prior to performing a usability test for existing websites and applications. Using this approach we can often clearly identify the areas of known concern and focus usability testing on these areas.

Performing The Test

A typical usability test consists of 5-10 one-to-one sessions over a 2 day period. During each test session we ask users questions and ask them to perform a series of real-world scenarios to accomplish with your product or website. We record the users' comments and behavior as they are working on the tasks. We call this process "Logging". Our software captures each logged observation and ties it to a specific point in time in our video capture feed.

Analysis & Reporting

Follwing a test, we have a LOT of data to go through. Typically we have about 3-5 gigabytes of video and 600-1000 observations to review. After analyzing the test results, we'll provide you with a detailed report containing our raw observation, user comments, summerized findings and actionable design recommendations. We'll also present our findings and solutions to your design team in person or remotely via a web conference.

Fixing The Stuff That's Broke (Optional)

Turning the results of a usability test into measurable changes is key to the success of your testing efforts. We'll help you to identify short-term high-value fixes as well as develop a plan for longer term more systemic changes as needed.

Do We Have Time For This?

We understand this is an effort competing for resources like everything else on your project. We recommend you run your tests early in the project lifecycle focusing more on prototype tests rather than testing a completed project. The last thing your developers want to hear one week before a production launch is that the usability testing people found 40 more things to fix. That said, not testing may mean that your users found the bugs after the production launch. The bottom line with usability testing is "Test early and often" when possible.

We usually need 1-2 weeks to help finalize the test plan and recruit users, depending on which types of users you need and the complexity of the test scripts.