A good product design can be a worthwhile investment in the long run. Design is undeniably one of the focus areas in most groups nowadays. Estimates place the ROI for design at over 228%. This can happen if your product is aligned and focused on the needs of your business and customers. That is why it is important to have an organized testing so you can speed up the launch of your product.
User experience can be enhanced through usability testing. It gives you an assurance that the products you create are made to work and be usable to customers. It may be known under different terminologies, but the main objective is still the same—test and observe how the design appeals to user experiences.
When launching a product, some people make the mistake of going down the path they did not hope or wish to thread. When this happens, their efforts go for naught and start all over again. To keep this from happening, here are some tips on how you can speed up your product release.
Step 1: Careful Planning
A key step in the entire process is the usability test plan. At this stage, clear-cut goals must be in place. Identify if you’d rather focus on data that is quantitative or qualitative. Or perhaps you’d like users to focus on the design aesthetics or the user experience through navigation. You can then build a proper prototype based on the data you’ll gather that you can then use for testing later on.
Keep your goals to a minimum—but make sure that they are practical and objective. This will allow you to gain concise, specific, and clear results from testing. Next you’ll need to Then you need to define the test area. It can cover a wide range of areas and will ask some general questions, such as which pages are easiest to use or which functions are easiest to use in an application. Or they more targeted questions can be used, such as what limits user purchases or what factors hinder conversions.
The testing and analysis for usability should be the next planned phase. Determine the format for reporting the test results according to your objectives. This will speed up the process and increase efficiency.
Step 2. Prepare a product or prototype for testing
Usability testing is usually done during the main stage of development. This implies that a finished and final product is not available for testing yet. Usability testing is done early on to identify obstacles or costly changes to allow you to move to the final development phase. However, testing whether initial or mid-stages will still require a product and is why many have opted to create or use prototypes to achieve this objective. This can be a demo application or one with limited functions just for the sake of testing the required applications. A good prototype that aligns with the final product’s vision is essential for a usability testing program to have an impact on development.
In order for testing and development to run smoothly, you must have a prototype that can properly test the needed features and capabilities.
Step 3. Find the right and proper users to do testing
Identifying your target demographic is the first and most vital step in finding the right set of users. If your product is meant for gamers, not everyone will fit the bill to do the testing. On the contrary, this step is a bit easier to do for business product applications because of the predefined target market, and all that’s left is to you have to do is determine the right group of users for the test suite. Although for corporate products there may be several user groups. It is very important that you recruit people from each collection or from as many collections as possible.
Step 4. Perform usability tests
Of all the test phases, this is probably the most fun to do. Make sure to perform usability tests in a location free from interference. Eliminate any chances for logistical problems like bad connection or registration problems beforehand. Idling should solve these problems.
When testing UX, be sure not to influence user opinion in any way. Don’t ask questions that may force them to give a specific answer, for example, “is the page too blue?” Your questions must be neutral and allow testers to identify these on their own without coaxing. Also, don’t look for test reviews. The goal of the quiz is to complete a task, not to check which color they think is best for the board.
Step 5: Register the Test Successfully
If you decide against writing everything to the dot these tests won’t help. After completing the test, collect the data for analysis. Use a predefined format to summarize the results. Check the test log to fill in the blanks found. Since you have presented the format and process of the document, this step will naturally occur during testing.
Step 6: Analyze and Repeat
Review the results the testing yielded. Sit down with the product manager or designer to analyze and assess the data. Be open to testing because some of the results may completely contradict your assumptions. This is the essence of user testing, don’t be too rigid in design. Make improvements based on test results and feedback. Highlighting issues in a test report can be utilized as the next release’s jumping point.
