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Super Easy Usability Testing

I'm going to make this the absolute easiest introduction to usability testing you could possibly find anywhere. If you find a simpler introduction, email me, and I'll make this one even easier.

Here are your two steps:

1. Identify your users. Who are your clients? Who buys your products? Who uses your Web site?

2. Watch your users use your Web site, products, and services. Take notes and listen.

That's it! If you have done these two things, then you are way ahead of many other people. Most companies really don't know their users. Sure, they have accounts, they know the purchasing agents very well, and they read the general sales reports. But, too many companies simply do not know their true customers. (And, if they do know them, they are not open enough with them.)

The users of your Web site are the key. You must know them better than you know yourself. Track them down; target them. Then, help them solve their problems.

When you know your end users you can design your company to fit what they want. When you know your users you can solve their problems. When you know your users, you can test them and improve your company.

It is amazing how much data you can collect just from watching your clients. For example, as Jared Spool pointed out, this is simply the best way to understand how your customers use your Web site. Web site usability is a matter of knowing how to improve your site based on what your clients need. You want to solve their problems. If you watch them use your site and if you take notes, and if you listen to them, they will tell you what to do next. They will hand you a blueprint -- the next design is driven by gathering user data.

If you look again at my two step usability testing process, you'll see that I'm not recommending any high technology. You don't need high-powered technology or tools to do testing. In fact, low fidelity tools are often better for you in terms of costs, and development time. Mock ups on paper are a snap. Show your clients the mock ups and start collecting the data -- on your low-tech notepad.

You don't need to understand t-tests, ANOVAs, cluster analyses, or linear regression to analyze data either. You'll have so much simple and easy data that you'll be plenty busy. The first, basic problems you find can easily improve the usability of your Web site by 50-500%. Those kinds of differences don't need to be detected by hard core statistics. Indeed, if you need to use such techniques, then you are looking at the wrong users or the wrong core business areas.

To summarize: Identify your users, and record their activities. Watch them use your Web site. Talk to them about about the work that they do. Know their tasks and their day-to-day business needs. When you think you are done, that is exactly the time to go back and test again.

You can deploy when you have completed the first round of testing, but be sure to iterate. Again, and again. And again. Your testing is never done: Your users change, their problems change, the technology changes.

Is there more to usability and usability testing? You bet! If you think that you only need to do this kind of testing, you are wrong. The usability engineering process is actually quite robust. Even the most intelligent and respected authorities have trouble keeping up with the various usability developments. Technology alone drives many of these changes. Also, new and improved techniques are developed continually. Let my introduction be just that, an introduction. Once you get your feet wet, however, you'll see how much more there is to learn.

Next, you might want to read The Open Company Manifesto

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