Usability testing is a technique used to evaluate website usability, i.e. how easy it is for visitors to use your website.

This technique should not be confused with website accessibility which measures how accessible your website is to search engine crawlers like Googlebot.

This technique should also not be confused with A/B testing, in which marketers usually test their assumptions.

All websites have usability issues, but they are generally not visible to webmasters, as they know how their website works or is supposed to work. In other words,

You are not the best person to determine your website’s usability issues.

You need a third-party perspective.

To carry out usability testing, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Determine what you are going to test

Test the objections raised by your customers.

The majority of optimizers test their own assumptions or what their client/boss has to say about perceived customer problems.

You are smarter than that. You test the customer’s objections.

This is the surefire way to find and fix usability issues.

If something does not matter to your customers, then fixing it will not impact your business’s bottom line.

It is as simple as that. If you are regularly taking feedback from your customers/users and recording their objections, then you will never be short of objections.

Record your customers’ objections regarding:

1. navigation
2. website design
3. usability
4. text readability
5. informativeness
6. attention span
7. shopping cart
8. checkout process
9. product price
10. shipping
11. delivery
12. customer service etc.

Call your customers, email them, give them incentives, conduct surveys, offer discounts, or do anything that encourages them to give you feedback.

Your target audience is your best testers. This is one of the best ways to determine usability issues.

Step 2: Decide what you should test first.

You may have discovered n number of usability issues with your website through user feedback. But you probably do not have the time or resources to fix them all.

So it is prudent and practical to test those usability issues first and foremost, which are significantly impacting your website sales, like issues with the: checkout process, customer service, offering, pricing, shipping, etc.

Step 3: Ask or hire a test participant

Ask or hire someone to be a test participant. Ask someone from another company to be your test participant, or ask a friend who has never visited your website before.

You also can hire someone (online or offline) to be your test participant but bear in mind that this is usually expensive.

Make sure that whoever you ask is not familiar with your website at all, i.e. they have never visited your website before.

Otherwise, they may not be able to determine the most obvious usability issues as they already know how your website works.

You should aim to get five test participants for conducting your usability test in order to get optimum results.

If you cannot arrange five test participants, even one test participant is better than choosing not to conduct the usability test.

Since a usability test is qualitative, the sample size does not really matter.

Step 4: Create a task

Create the task which you want your test participant to complete.

Example of a task:

Purchase car insurance from our website

Step 5: Create a scenario

Write a brief description which helps your test participant in completing your task. This brief description is known as a scenario.

Example of a scenario:

You are a person who needs to renew their car insurance. Determine how much car insurance you need, compare car insurance quotes and then make a purchase. Here are your account and credit card details:

Note: Make sure that your scenario is easy to understand and provides all the necessary information to complete the task.

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Step 6: Deliver instructions to your test participant

Hand over the task and scenario to your test participant and ask them to complete the task.

Deliver the following instructions:

1. Request your test participant to speak their thoughts and actions as they browse the website.
2. Request that they do not ask any questions about how the website should be used during the test. For example, asking how to find a particular product on the website or how to complete the task in any other way.

Delivering instructions is a very important part of the usability test.

If you help your test participant in any way during the test (even via body language), then you will skew your own test results.

So it is important that you deliver the instructions and stop the test participant from expecting any help from you while using your website.

Step 7: Ask questions from the test participant but do not help them

Ask questions whenever the participant looks confused, puzzled, or frustrated.

However, do not answer the participant’s questions regarding website usage and do not help them under any circumstances, in any way, shape or form (including body language, such as nodding or shaking head to show agreement or disagreement, etc.) to complete your task.

Allow the test participant to figure out on their own how to use your website.

After all, this is what you are testing in the first place.

Step 8: Record the screen activities of your test participant

Use a screen recording software like Camtasia to record the activities which happened on the screen and the conversation between you and the participant. 

This is an important step, as it will later help you in taking detailed notes.

Step 9: Take notes throughout the test

Jot down all the objections and frustrations raised or expressed by your participant during the test. These objections are usability issues, and you need to fix them.

Step 10: Draw conclusions from your usability test

You can draw conclusions from the notes you took while conducting the test. Once you have drawn the conclusions, you fix the website usability issues.

Sample Usability Test

Task:

Purchase car insurance from our website.

Scenario:

You are a person who needs to renew his car insurance. Determine how much car insurance you need, compare car insurance quotes, and then make a purchase. Here are your account and credit card details:

username: alex3456
Password: rtghdu5463@$JUKN
e-mail address: [email protected]
Credit Card Number: 938494892423781
Card Expiry Date: 12/15
CVV number: 456

Instructions:

• Speak your thoughts or whatever you do as much as possible as you browse the website.
• Don’t ask any questions related to website usage during the task.

Notes:

• The user faced problems in finding out the car insurance calculator so he used the site search feature.
• The user is frustrated because the ‘compare insurance quotes’ page took too much time to download.
• The user is unsure whether he will get the best deal as he is unsatisfied with the insurance quotes.
• The user got frustrated as he had to enter the email address twice while checking out.
• The user doesn’t know the chassis number of his car, so he can’t make the purchase.

Conclusions:

• Make the car insurance calculator more prominent on the website.
• Reduce the download time of the ‘compare car insurance quotes’ page.
• Check out what quotes leading competitors are providing.
• Work on the checkout process.
• Find out whether it is possible to purchase car insurance without specifying the car chassis number. If yes, then eliminate this field from the checkout process.