Usability testing on 10 cents a day
Keeping testing simple - so you do enough of it.
Several true things about testing
1. If you want a great site, you've got to test.
- The only way to find out if it really works is to test it. Testing reminds you that not everyone thinks the way you do, knows what you know, uses the Web the way you do.
2. Testing on user is 100 percent better than testing none.
- Testing always works, and the user will show you important things you can do to improve your site.
3. Testing on user early in the project is better than testing 50 near the end.
- A simple test early is almost always more valuable than a sophisticated test later.
4. The importance of recruiting representative users is overrated.
- It's good to do your testing with people who are like the people who will use your site.
5. The point of testing is not to prove or disprove something. It's to inform your judgment.
6. Testing is an iterative process.
- You make something, test it, fix it, and test it again.
7. Nothing beats a live audience reaction.
How many users should you test?
Testing tree or four users makes it possible to test and debrief in the same day, so you can take advantage of what you've learned right away.
Recruit loosely and grade on a curve
Take anyone you can get (within limits) and grade on a curve.
Try to find users who reflect your audience, but don't get hung up about it
- We're all beginners under the skin.
- It's usually not a good idea to design a site so that only your target audience can use it.
- Experts are rarely insulted by something that is clear enough for beginners.
The exceptions:
- If your site is going to be used almost exclusively by one type of user and it's no harder to recruit from that group, then test just women.
- If your audience is split between clearly divined groups with very divergent interests and needs, then you need to test users from each group at least once.
- If using your site requires specific domain knowledge, then you need to recruit people with that domain knowledge for at least one round of test.
When you're recruiting:
- Offer a reasonable incentive.
- Keep the invitation simple.
- Avoid discussing the site (or the organization behind the site) beforehand.
- Don't be embarrassed to ask friends and neighbors.
Where do you test?
You need is an office or conference room with two chairs, a PC or MAC, a camcorder, a long video cable, and a tripod.
Who should do the testing?
Try to choose someone who tends to be patient, calm, empathetic, a good listener, and inherently fair.
Who should observe?
It's a good idea to encourage everyone - team members, people from marketing and business development, and any other stakeholders to attend.
What do you test, and when do you test it?
- "Get it" testing
- Key task testing
Review the results right away
Do three or four tests in a morning and then debrief over lunch.
- Triage: reviewing the problems people saw and deciding which ones need to be fixed.
- Problem solving: figuring out how to fix them.
Typical problems
- Users are unclear on the concept.
- The words they're looking for aren't there.
- There's too much going on.
Some triage guidelines.
- Ignore "kayak" problems.
- Resist the impulse to add things.
- Take "new feature" requests with a grain of salt.
- Grab the low-hanging fruit.
Usability as common courtesy
Why your web site should be a mensch.
The Reservoir of Goodwill
It is useful to imagine that every time we enter a Web site
- It's idiosyncratic.
- It's situational.
- You can refill it.
- Sometimes a single mistake can empty it.
Things that diminish goodwill
Here are a few of the thins that tend to make users feel like the people publishing a site don't hae their best interests at heart:
- Hiding information that I want
- Punishing me for not doing things your way.
- Asking me for informatin you don't really need.
- Shucking and jiving me.
- Putting sizzle in my way.
- Your site looks amateurish.
Things that increase goodwill
- Know the main things that people want to do onyour site and make them obvious and easy.
- Tell me what I want to know.
- Save me steps wherever you can.
- Put effort into it.
- Know what questions I'm likely to have, and answer them.
- Provide me with creature comforts like printer-friendly pages.
- Make it easy to recover form errors.
- When in doubt, apologize.
Accessibility, Cascading Style Sheets, and you
Just when you think you're done, a cat floats by with buttered toast strapped to its back
What developers and designers hear
Two arguments in particular thend to make them skeptical:
- A large percentage of the population actually needs help accessing the Web.
- The idea that making things more accessible benefits everyone.
What designers and developers fear
- More work.
- Compromised design.
The real solution - as usual - a few years away
The five things you can do right now
1. Fix the usability problems that confuse everyone
2. Read this article before you read anything else about accessibility
.
3. Read a book. (
Buiding Accessible Websites by Joe Clark,
Constructing Accessible Websites by Jim Thatcher et al,
Maximum Accessibility:
Making Your Web Site More Usable for Everyone by John Slatin and Sharron Rush, and A CD-ROM called
The WebAIM Guide to Web Accessibility Techniques and Concepts)
4. Start using Cascading Style Sheets
- Infinitely greater control of formatting.
- Flexibility.
- Consistency among browsers.
- Serialize your content.
- Allow your text to resize.
5. Go for the low-hanging fruit
- Add appropriate alt text to every image.
- Make your forms work with screen readers.
- Create a "Skip to Main Content" link at the beginning of each page.
- Make all content accessible by keyboard.
- Don't use JavaScript without a good reason.
- Use client-side (not server-side) image maps.
