Chapter 2
Do a Usability Test Now!
Basic user research is easy, fast, and highly effective. Some forms can be done with any product. The question is whether you want to do it yourself. And there’s only one way to find that out: try it. In this chapter, you will learn a fast and easy user research technique by doing a usability test with your friends and family. After 15 minutes of reading and a couple hours of listening, you will have a much better understanding of your customers and which parts of your product are difficult to use.
The usability test will tell you whether your audience can use what you’ve made. It helps identify problems people have with a specific interface and reveals difficult-to-complete tasks and confusing language. Normally, usability tests are done as part of a larger research project and involve extensive preparation and analysis. That’s what Chapters 4 through 16 of this book are about. However, in the interest of presenting something that’s quick and that provides good bang for the buck, here are two versions of a friends and family usability test. It’s designed to let you get almost immediate feedback on an interface with minimal overhead. If you’re reading this chapter in the morning, you could be talking to people by the end of the workday and rethinking some functionality by tomorrow. But give yourself a day or two to prepare if this is your first time conducting user research.
You will need some representation of an interface to take advantage of this technique. A working product or a semifunctional prototype will be easiest at this stage, but you can also ask people to evaluate a paper sketch.
If you don’t have any interface representation handy, then it’s a bit too early for you to try this out. You should use one of the research techniques that will help you start designing, such as interviews or a site visit. These are discussed in Chapters 6 and 9 of the book, respectively.
But if you just want to try out this technique and don’t need it to apply to your own work immediately, you can use any interface that’s already familiar to you—whether a website, a kiosk, or an appliance.
A Nano-usability Test
Here’s the nano-size version of a guerrilla usability test. This summary will get you started in less than a minute, not counting the time you spend reading this paragraph. Yes, you’ll get closer to a “real” usability evaluation with the 15-minute model. But follow these five steps to get an immediate taste of user research:
1. Find one person who cares about your product. It doesn’t matter who.
2. Arrange to watch them use that product. Go to their house; meet at a café; use screen sharing. It doesn’t really matter, as long as you can clearly see what they’re doing.
3. Ask them to use the product to do something they care about: contact a friend; cook dinner; buy something. Whatever.
4. Final step: watch them do it. Don’t ask questions. Don’t tell them what to do. Don’t say anything. Just watch.
And…you’re done!
You may be wondering: that’s it? That’s all there is to usability? Why do consultancies charge so much money for it, then? Actually, no. There’s a lot more science, craft, and art to usability than we can get across in under a minute. But usability isn’t brain surgery, and it’s important to realize that anyone can start practicing the basics in under a minute.
A Micro-usability Test
The micro-usability test, which we’ll explain below, is closer to what a full-fledged usability evaluation would look like. Try this after trying the nano-usability test, or if you’ve got some more time to spare. It’ll still take you less than 15 minutes to figure it out.
There are four major steps in the process of conducting a usability test.
Define the Audience and Their Goals
An evaluation always proceeds from ‘why does this thing exist?’
Dave Hendry, Associate Professor, University of Washington Information School
You are making something for some reason. You have decided that some people in the world can make their lives better with your idea. Maybe it helps them buy something cheaper. Maybe it’s to get them information they wouldn’t have otherwise. Maybe it helps them connect with other people. Maybe it entertains them.
Regardless, you are making something that you feel a specific group of people will find valuable. For them to get that value, there’s something they have to do. Usually, it’s several things. For a website selling something, it can be “Find the widget, buy it, and subscribe to the newsletter.” For a matchmaking site, it can be “Find someone interesting, write him a note, and send it.”
So the first thing you should do in a usability test is to figure out whom the site is for. What nouns and adjectives describe the people who you expect will use it most often? What differentiates them from everyone else? Is it their age, their interests, their problems? It’s probably all of the above, and more.
For example, say that you want to examine the usability of the browsing and purchasing user experience of an online cutlery store. You can quickly create an audience definition for the site’s audience.
People who want to buy cutlery.
But this isn’t very specific. My grandmother regularly buys plastic forks for family picnics, but she’s not going to be doing it through a website. So the definition should have a little more detail.
The target user audience are people who
Next, figure out what the key product features are. Write down what your product is about. Why are people going to use it? Why is it valuable to its users? If you were at a loud party and had 30 seconds to describe your site to someone who had never heard of it, what you would tell them? Write it down.
forkopolis.com enables people all over North America to buy cutlery from one of the largest ranges available, featuring all the major luxury brands and the best designers. It allows for easy location of specific styles and pieces so that buyers can quickly and cheaply replace a single damaged teaspoon or buy a whole restaurant’s worth of silverware.
Create Tasks That Address Those Goals
Now write down the five most important functions of the site. What should people be able to do above all else? In a sales site, they should obviously be able to purchase things. But they should also be able to find them, whether or not they know exactly what they’re trying to buy. Furthermore, they should probably be able to find what’s on sale and what’s an especially good value. Make a list, describing each function with a sentence or two.
In a couple of sentences describe a situation where someone would perform that function, written from his or her perspective. Call this a task. If “Find specific items by style” is one of the functions, a task for it would be the following:
You decided that you want to buy a set of Louis XIV forks from forkopolis.com. Starting from the homepage of forkopolis, find a set of Louis XIV forks.
Finally, order the tasks from the easiest to the hardest. Starting with an easy task makes people comfortable with the product and the process.
Get the Right People
Now, find some people who fit the profile you created in step 1. When doing a quick exercise like this, you can get a decent idea of the kinds of problems and misunderstandings that occur with real users by bringing in five or six people who resemble the people you expect will be interested in your product. The fastest way to get such people is through the people you already know. If you’re in a large company, this could be co-workers from departments that have nothing to do with your product. If you’re in a small company, this can be your friends and family and your co-workers’ friends and families. It can be people from the office down the hall. It can be people off the street. As long as they’re somewhat like the people you expect to visit your site, it can be anybody who is unfamiliar with the product and unbiased toward it (so a doting grandmother and the CEO of your biggest competitor are probably excluded). Unless your product is designed for developers, avoid people who design or market digital products and services for a living: they know too much.
Contact these people, telling them that you’d like to have them help you evaluate the effectiveness of a product you’re working on. Don’t tell them any more about it than the short description you wrote at the top of the task list. Tell them that no preparation is needed, that they should just come in. Schedule them a day or two in advance for half-hour individual interviews, leaving 15 minutes in between each interview.
Watch Them Try to Perform the Tasks
First, write a script that you and your invited evaluators will follow. Put your short site description at the top of the page. This will be all that the evaluators will be told about your product. Don’t tell them anything else. In the real world, a short description and a link are often all that someone will know. On separate pages, write down your tasks, one per page. Don’t include any information that users wouldn’t have if they had just started using the service.
Now find a quiet place where you and the evaluators can talk about the product without being distracted. Small, out-of-the-way conference rooms often work well. Make sure that there is nothing related to the product around, so as not to distract the evaluators or provide information that could be confusing. Thus, no notes, no company propaganda posters, no whiteboard leftovers, and no tradeshow mouse pads.
Set up whatever device you’re using for the tasks. For example, if you’re using a web browser, set it up in the most generic configuration possible, removing custom toolbars, custom colors, display options, and extraneous bookmarks. Bookmark or otherwise mark the initial pages or locations evaluators are going to need for each of the scenarios you’ve written. You might even want to create a new user account for the test so that your own settings don’t confuse the participant. If you’re using paper sketches, make sure they’re well-organized.
When each participant arrives, prepare him or her for what’s going to happen. Make the participants feel comfortable. Introduce the process by saying something like:
• You’ve been invited to help us understand which parts of the product work for you and which are confusing.
• Even though we’re calling this activity a usability test, you’re not being tested. The product is. There’s nothing you can do wrong. It’s not your fault if you can’t get something to work, and you won’t hurt anyone’s feelings if you say something bad about the product.
• It’s really important that you speak all of your thoughts aloud. Think of it like a “play-by-play” description of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
• I’ll stay in the same room and quietly take notes, but you should ignore me. Just focus on describing what you’re doing.
You’ll probably want to write a script that has all these points in it, but don’t stick to the script when you’re talking with participants. You’ll sound stiff and uncomfortable. Instead, practice it ahead of time so that you feel—and sound—conversational and friendly.
Once the participants are comfortable and you’ve given them the initial instructions, read the product description and the sheets with the task descriptions. Tell them to do the tasks in the best way they can, but if they can’t figure one out in a couple of minutes, they should feel free to move on to the next task. Reinforce that they should be speaking aloud the whole time.
Then, let them talk. Sit back and watch, quietly taking notes. If they get stuck, don’t tell them where to click or what to look at. No matter what, don’t tell them how to do something. If they seem to be particularly frustrated, tell them that it’s not their fault if something seems impossible, and they should move on to the next task. You may have to remind them to keep talking.
Once all the tasks have been completed, or the half hour is over, it’s time to stop. Ask the participants to tell you their general impression and whether they would use the site in “real life.” Then give them a present for their time (a gift certificate to a local restaurant or a bookstore, a coupon for lunch at the company cafeteria, a tank of gas—whatever seems appropriate for your audience), thank them, and send them on their way. Your co-workers probably don’t need anything but a promise to help them out later.
Finally, reset the device for the next participant. If you’re using a web browser, be sure to clear the cache and history and set it to a blank page.
What Did You Learn?
As soon as the usability test is over, ask yourself the following questions:
• What worked well? What didn’t?
• Did the users consistently misunderstand anything? If so, what?
• Were there any consistent mistakes? If so, what?
• Did they do what you expected them to do? If not, what did they do?
• Did they do things in the order in which you had expected? If not, what order did they do them in?
• What did they find interesting?
• What did you expect them to find interesting that they did not find interesting? And vice versa: what did you expect them to ignore that they found fascinating?
• Did they know what the product was for? Did they miss any big ideas?
• How many of the tasks were they able to do? Which ones gave them trouble?
• When did they look frustrated? Confused? What were they doing?
• Did the site meet their expectations? If not, where did it fail them?
At this point, you should have some ideas of where your product has problems. You’ve probably seen several things come up again and again. Maybe people don’t understand the name you’ve given to a certain function. Maybe they don’t see a critical idea. Maybe they aren’t interested in what’s being offered. Maybe they love it and it fulfills everything they want. All these things are good to know, since they tell you where you are having problems and, equally important, where you’re not.
Friends and family usability testing is fast, easy, and convenient, but it’s only a quick and dirty technique. Your friends and family may give you a general idea of the problems with your product, but (more often than not) they’re not representatives of your actual user audience. Whenever possible, use participants who are more representative of your audience.
Now that you have a sense of how outsiders view your product, you can begin to think about what that data means for your relationships inside your organization.
• Did you confirm the existence of a problem you suspected? What do you need to do to fix the problem?
• Did something you learned contradict your beliefs about the product? Is anyone in your organization making decisions based on those same beliefs? Do you need to communicate that new learning to other people? How might you investigate that belief further, and what resources would you need?
• Did something puzzle you? Who can you work with to figure out what’s going on and how to respond to it?
What to Do Next
With a first usability test completed, you probably have an idea of what the technique is good for and how it’s useful to you. If you read Chapters 3 and 4, you should be able to put together a research plan for your product, incorporating discount usability testing (which the friends and family usability test is an example of) and a number of other techniques. The in-depth techniques described in Chapters 5 through 16 will tell you how to go far beyond this basic test. Finally, Chapters 17 through 19 will help you present your findings in a way that convinces development teams, clients, and other stakeholders to make the changes that will make your product or service really work for your audience, and to keep directing it toward users’ activities, values, and aspirations well into the future.