Usability testing is a qualitative research step that involves real people interacting with an app or website that you have built or need to update. It’s a method to test the functionality of a website (or a digital product) via brief interviews in which participants are asked to emphasize what they believe is unclear or user-unfriendly.
Why is it so important for a marketing strategy?
The goal of usability testing is to reveal a digital product’s flaws and improve the overall user experience. The external opinion of participants is the method’s winning factor. It can be difficult to change a product that you have been working on for a long time. As a result, seeking the advice of unfamiliar people can be extremely beneficial.
Hotjar identifies 8 top benefits of website usability testing. We retrieved a small test from their key-points list, however, if you want to get a more in-depth reading about these questions, take a look at their introductory article.
Is your website successfully designed? Then answer some questions. Let’s start!
- Do people understand what your website’s intentions are?
- Do users get what they expect of the website structure?
- Are your processes straightforward and intuitive?
- Why do your users focus on certain pages and ignore others?
- Is the website error-free?
- Is your website customer-empathic?
- How is your customer experience?
The above questions represent the backbone of your website and can be retrieved through a detailed usability research!
Step-by-step guide for a winning usability research
A few weeks ago we wrote an article on how to build your buyer-persona in four simple steps. To better understand Refreshworks’ usability testing strategy, go take a look at the article!
- Once you build buyer-personas, make a list of people who can fit the created personas. Strive for variety and try to achieve a balanced sample group that reflects all the developed personas.
- Create your list of questions. Divide the list in three sections:
- five seconds test: after only 5 seconds of looking, participants need to state what they think the website is about. Check out all the information about the test here.
- action test: ask participants to perform tasks. Browse the website and try to identify the weak points before writing these questions. Keep in mind that you should not be in charge. For example, if your website’s menu structure is unclear, ask something like, “Could you please tell me where on the website you would look for information about the company?”
- general feedback: general inputs are always welcome!
- Quick tip: once you collect the data, it is very useful to transcribe the key elements right away so that you still can remember the different shades within your participants’ answers.
- It’s time to draw conclusions! What are the most common elements? Is there an overlap between answers? Try to look for patterns and translate your participants’ opinions into concrete suggestions.
Ready! You can now continue with the more quantitative steps of your research! Remember, if you still have doubts you can always get in touch, Refreshworks is happy to help.
