Usability testing

Spend most of the class testing the usability your website with a bunch of different users—and fixing any problems that arise.

Goal

We don’t know our product or website is usable until a user uses it. Just because we think a product works doesn’t mean that it actually works well.

Refer to the usability testing checklist ➔

  1. Collaboration

    This is collaborative. You will facilitate user tests with classmates who have no knowledge of your product.

1 Determine the testing scenarios

Determine what flows, scenarios & parts of your website that need to be tested.

If you’re working on a team, assign different team members ownership of different flows and scenarios.

2 Set up the testing environment

If you’re testing in a mobile situation get a phone ready. If you’re testing a desktop scenario set up a laptop with the necessary screen ready.

Make sure the starting screen is ready when you user sits down to test. And reset it after each test.

3 Observe all user tests

Remember not to guide or help your users: you want to see them struggle and find the friction of your user tests.

Run your users through as many flows and scenarios as are important to your application.

Collect observations and feedback from your users using the standard usability testing document.

4 Submitting Issues

Create an Issue for each usability friction or hurdle. Assign these issues to the proper labels, people & sprints.

5 Fix problems

All the areas of friction should be fixed before continuing. If you need to do another testing session to determine smoothness do so.