User experience (UX) design is all about creating products that your users love. As a result, user experience testing is a central tenet of UX. With the right usability testing, you can really ensure that your product works for your users.
If you want your products to stand out, UX testing is an essential part of the design process. However, to make it work, you need to know how to do it properly.
Here’s everything you need to know about the testing involved in UX.
What Is User Experience Testing?
Firstly, what is user experience testing? Essentially, UX testing involves testing a digital product to find any potential usability issues. Some people also call it usability testing.
A user experience tester can carry out the test in several ways. However, the goal is always the same. The user tries to use the product and then may answer questions about their experience. As a result, the tester can learn about the product, spot any flaws, and enhance the experience.
Plus, it can let you know if the product truly aligns with the target user.
Why Is UX Prototype Testing Important?
There are multiple kinds of UX testing. Design teams often test at all stages of the process, including during the prototyping phase. UX prototype testing has a variety of benefits for design teams, including the following.
- Proper testing provides a deeper understanding of your user base. It can help you understand their behaviors and motivations.
- Design teams can spot any potential issues with the product and fix them before launch. This saves time and money down the line.
- You can also spot areas for improvement. This can help you improve the product and ensure it’s both competitive and useful.
Essentially, usability testing can give you actionable insights about your product. Plus, it helps you understand how real people interact with your product. As the designer, it’s sometimes too easy to become engrossed in the product. As a result, you might miss some of the potential issues with it and how it works.
Meanwhile, user testing minimizes the chance of errors.
How To Do User Experience Testing
There are many different ways to do user testing. Before we dive into the step-by-step instructions, here are the basics of how to do user experience testing.
What You Need for UX Testing
For any testing within UX, you’ll need a few things.
- The tester: Someone will need to oversee the process. The tester will give the participants instructions, ask questions, and so on. They will need some specific research skills.
- The participants: Every UX test needs participants. They should represent the target audience as closely as possible. It’s these participants who will tell you if you have created a good or a poor user experience.
- Tasks: Finally, you’ll need the tasks. This is what the participants will do as you attempt to figure out if the product works. Typically, these tasks involve following a particular user flow or answering questions.
Qualitative vs. Quantitative UX Testing
UX testing can be quantitative or qualitative. Qualitative tests rely on observations and feedback, while quantitative ones rely on data.
Depending on what you are testing for, you might use a combination of these methods. For example, testers can track things like the length of time it takes users to complete certain tasks (quantitative data). However, they can also ask users for feedback after the process (qualitative data).
In-Person or Remote UX Testing
There are also ways to test UX both in-person and remotely. With in-person testing, the participants are in the same room as the tester. In remote testing, the participant engages over the phone or a video call.
Remote testing may be either moderated or unmoderated. A moderated test means that the tester supervises/observes the process. Meanwhile, unmoderated tests mean nobody supervises the user.
Other Types of UX Testing
UX testing can also be split into several other categories, such as the following.
- Explorative: This type involves testing before making any design decisions. The design team can ‘explore’ their options and check out what competitors are doing.
- Comparative: This type of testing involves comparing two different products. Or, sometimes, it can involve comparing two versions of the same product. In other words, this is like A/B testing.
Evaluative: This type of testing is closest to traditional usability tests. It involves giving the product to real users to evaluate how well it works.
UX Testing: Step-by-Step
Understanding the types of testing is all well and good, but how do you actually carry out a test? Here are the steps you should take.
1. Define the Test
First, decide what you’re going to test. This is where the above types come in–figure out what stage you’re at in the design process. For example, are you doing an explorative test or a comparative one? What are you trying to find out?
2. Choose a Method
Next, choose one of the usability testing methods outlined below. You’ll need to pick one based on the goal of your research, your budget, and your resources.
3. Set the Tasks
Even within each specific method, you’ll need to decide on the tasks you’ll set. Make sure you outline a clear process for how the test will take place. Consider what information your participants will need.
4. Define Success
Before you start testing, you need to determine what success and failure look like. If the users complete the flow you set them, is that enough? Or is there a certain time limit you want to meet?
Figure out a way to measure usability and make sure you’re clear on these metrics.
5. Find Participants
Then, it’s time to find participants. You need to use a group of people representative of your target audience. Make sure you also set a group large enough to give you reliable results. Usually, you’ll need a minimum of five participants.
6. Analyze the Data
After carrying out the test, you need to analyze the data. Try to do this as soon as possible so that the test is fresh in your mind.
You can use methods here, like affinity mapping, to make sense of your qualitative data, like user feedback. Meanwhile, for quantitative data, you can calculate averages.
7. Gather Your Findings
Finally, make sure you collate your findings. There’s no point in carrying out user tests if you don’t utilize the information. However, with lots of data, it can be difficult to find what you’re searching for.
So, after analyzing the data, make sure you summarize the findings and share them with the team.
User Experience Testing Methods
Now you know how to carry out a UX test. However, what are the different user experience testing methods you can use?
Card Sorting
Often, design teams use the card sorting technique both during research and testing. This method is all about evaluating information architecture.
The process is simple:
- Write different concepts on cards or sticky notes.
- The user arranges them into categories based on what makes sense to them.
In this way, you can understand how and where your users expect to find different information. You can check if your information architecture matches the user’s mental model.
Observations
Observation is a very simple approach to UX testing. The user completes the set tasks while the tester watches.
Typically, the user and the tester don’t interact. Instead, the tester aims to see how the user would approach the product in the real world. Although it’s simple, the tester needs to pay careful attention to the user’s body language.
Adjacent to this technique is a contextual inquiry, which involves more interaction.
Session Recordings
Sometimes, testers use software to record user tests. This can capture quantitative data such as the time taken to complete a task or the number of clicks. You can use this data to see points of friction or common errors.
Guerilla Testing
Guerilla testing is unique. Instead of gathering participants from your target audience, it involves approaching people at random. Note, however, that this technique isn’t ideal for all types of research or all products. However, it can give you a large sample to work with.
What About A/B Testing UX?
A/B testing, or comparative testing, is a great way to refine your product. If you have the time and resources, you should consider A/B testing UX. That way, you can find out which version of your product works better.
Unlike other usability tests, A/B testing doesn’t always tell you how usable the product is. However, it can help you create the version that’s best for your users.
You can use A/B testing to understand UX copy, button placement, or even colors.
User Experience Testing Tools
Throughout the testing process, you can use a variety of tools to help you. Here are some of the best user experience testing tools to consider.
Optimizely
Optimizely is a great platform for running all sorts of tests. It integrates with a variety of other tools, making it easy to use.
With Optimizely, you can run various tests and analyze them all in one place. This includes testing onboarding flows, marketing materials, and more.
Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg is great for spotting any UX errors. It lets you record your users as they work through the tests and then generates helpful data analysis.
This includes heatmaps to show where users click and scroll maps to show where users stop scrolling.
The more tests you run, the more Crazy Egg will be able to help you refine your site.
The Best Usability Testing Questions
When conducting usability tests, you need to ask the right questions. Here are the best usability testing questions to help you along the right path.
- How was your experience completing this task?
- What do you think of the website?
- What do you think of the language used on this page?
- How did you find the process of navigating to this page?
- Which parts of the site were the most useful?
- What did you think of the buttons?
- What do you think this feature is trying to communicate to you?
- Have you seen content like this before?
- Based on the previous task, is there a way you would prefer to do this action?
- Thinking about how you usually work, how would this feature change the way you work, if at all?
Above all else, it’s important to avoid asking leading questions. However, framing your questions in the right way can be difficult. For example, consider this question: “How simple and clear was the interface?” This seems like an innocent question. However, the words “simple” and “clear” can influence the participant’s answer.
Instead, focus on asking open-ended questions that do not include any potential biases. Yes/no questions often won’t give you the best data to work with, so try to encourage a discussion.
It takes a skilled researcher to conduct usability interviews properly. After all, you need to know which questions to ask and when to dig deeper. It takes practice, but it’s worth it.
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User experience testing is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to UX. You also need to nail all the other areas of UX.
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