15 theses about website usability testing

Effective website development (including design, aesthetics, site navigation and its content) involves receiving feedback from users. Feedback can be organized in various ways and at different stages of the life of the website. However, receiving feedback cannot be considered as a universal means to improve its effectiveness. Only usability testing with real users can show whether the site is meeting its intended goals.

1. Ideally, for the development of a web site, a means for usability testing should be budgeted for in the development budget. However, in reality, the budgets allocated for the development and development of sites are quite different, and some small sites managed by one person or a small group of people cannot afford to carry out such testing.
   
2. It doesn't matter how small the budget allocated for usability testing is. It is important to remember that the group of participants in the testing should correspond to the target audience of the website, otherwise the study will be ineffective.
   
3. Usability testing will help answer the following questions:
   
4. Sites can be explored and evaluated using various methods developed by usability experts. Even the simplest testing is better than no testing at all.
   
5. In the process of usability testing, real tasks should be set before users. The actions of users must be carefully observed, carefully documented and analyzed.
   
6. Users for testing can of course be recruited among students or employees of the company. However, it must be borne in mind that students may not be a representative group for the user audience of the site, and colleagues may know the structure and terminology used in the company's business too well. Users also should not be too familiar with the development of sites, since such users can quickly figure out how to build a site, and thus can create the illusion that the site is understandable to target users.
   
7. Some companies operating in the field of Internet technologies offer to involve family members of employees in order to maximally bring a group of users for testing to the target audience. However, it should be borne in mind that since the results of the tests are of interest to a large circle of interested people, problems may arise with the disclosure of the results obtained with the involvement of family members and relatives.
   
8. Monitoring users during testing will provide more detailed information than just answers to the questions during the survey. If the observation is carried out carefully and correctly, then its results will reveal most of the problems of the site.
   
9. Usability testing involving real users may find that some parts of the site are difficult and incomprehensible to users. Jacob Nielsen proposes to evaluate the problems of site usability based on three factors:
   
10. During usability testing, pay attention to what the user is doing, and not what he says. There is usually a significant difference between what the user says, “what he wants,” and what he will actually use. The only way to distinguish one from the other is thorough usability testing.
    
11. Some prefer to conduct testing with a user who performs the tasks assigned to him and pronounces each of his actions. "Thinking out loud" helps to understand the cause of the problem when using the site, and to work out a solution for its elimination, but using this method it becomes impossible to estimate the real time of the task, because The need to speak significantly increases lead time.
    
12. During testing, it is necessary to inform users and make sure that they clearly understand that the capabilities of the site, and not their capabilities, are being tested. Users need to understand that testing is done to find out how easily they can perform certain tasks — therefore, their requests for help will not always be fulfilled. Before testing usability, you need to take care of a nondisclosure agreement to protect your work, and also to ensure that the subjects understand how their personal information obtained during the testing will be used and protected.
    
13. The optimal number for testing is 6-9 users in each group. If there are more users than 9, then the law of diminishing incremental returns is triggered, that is, the effort expended will not be justified by increasing the accuracy of the results.
    
14. If testing is conducted with the involvement of children, then it will be better if one of the child’s parents or guardian is present. This will relieve from any claims on their part.
    
15. Paying users time to spend on testing is common practice. The amount of payment depends on the type of user (for example, student or lawyer) and the project budget. A cheap alternative to payment may be to attract relatives of employees who are not involved in the development of the site.