An Introduction to Usability Testing
Pondered on Sunday June 1, 2008
In October of 2000 Steve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
In May of last year I responded to a request from the Johnson County Library to do a user test of their new site. I wasn’t interested in the free flash drive they were giving away. I was interested in what it would be like to perform a user test plus I thought the site needed improvement.
At the time I really didn’t get the importance of the information I had provided the testers. I could tell that, to the tester, it was a bit of a let down that all I wanted to do on their site was look up books and check my account. The library site featured a lot more information then what I was looking for.
I remembered this lesson from Krug’s book; people are only interested in the information they want from your site. Users scan the page for what seems most like what they want and they go from there. This made a lot of sense to me because regardless of the excellent programs I could learn about on the library site I still only use the site for those basic tasks.
A few months ago, at the library of course, I ran across a well worn copy of the second edition of Don’t Make Me Think. My interest in Web usability and user testing was renewed. My new job as a web developer in the corporate world made the content of Krug’s book much more applicable to my daily tasks than it had been in my years in higher education.
While I was reading the book I received an email from the folks at An Event Apart. They were offering a discount for Krug and Lou Rosenfeld’s workshops. I knew I wanted to take the information about user testing to the next level so I got approval from work to attend Krug’s part of the workshop in Chicago May 16th.
As geeky as this sounds it was great to meet Steve Krug. I get really excited about meeting people who are influential in web design. I was a bit nervous but I worked up the gumption to have my picture taken with him.
The most valuable thing I took away from the workshop was that user testing does not need to be difficult or expensive. In fact I could do it exactly as the folks at the library had done it with me the year before—with a laptop, microphone and capture software such as TechSmith’s Camtasia.
Here are the other important things I learned at the workshop:
- The hardest part is writing the right tasks
- Serious usability issues are not hard to find
- Fix the three most serious issues first
- When fixing issues focus on the least you can do to solve the issue at hand (think “low hanging fruit”)
- A fix often means removing instead of adding information
- Test frequently as this is an iterative process
- Perfection is not the goal
- Start testing early in the design process
- Test competitor’s sites
- Don’t worry about statistical validity in testing, just items that jump out
- Don’t claim ROI on user testing because its still considered a luxury
I estimate that the budget for a monthly user testing initiative at work will be:
$299 for a one-time purchase of Camtasia Studio
$150 – $200 per month for gift cards for testers ($50 each)
Plus the program can be used to not only test our web site but internal applications as well such as employee tools on our intranet. Even though Krug says not to claim ROI I have a feeling that the results will be invaluable and I know the experience will be eye-opening.