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Executive Summary
Why Test for Usability?
Usability testing will save staff time, money and administrative overhead by defining what users need, how they find information and what information they are searching for. By listening to users, understanding how they interact with your site or tool, and responding to the needs users actually articulate programs can avoid spending unnecessary time and resources and better serve their users.
What to Test - Site goals, user tasks, testing scripts and metrics
When conceptualizing a website we rarely articulate what users must do, instead, we focus on what our site does.
When to Test - Beginning, Middle and End
Usability testing is a priority when launching a new project, and it is vital to test your interface at each level of the design process.
You should conduct user testing when:
Creating or redesigning a site;
Changing the goals of your site (i.e.:, adding donation capacity to your site);
Who to Test - Participants
The idea of finding individual participants to test your site can be overwhelming and a stumbling block to routine user testing. However you do not need hundreds of testers to obtain good information.
The Nielson Norman group indicates that 5 users can uncover 85% of the major usability issues, and 15 users can find 100%.*
Introduction
Site Goals
To meet each goal, users may need to engage in different tasks, such as navigating different paths. By articulating your goals in concrete terms, you can focus your site’s design and what to test.
Example Site Goals
Receive donations and present mission
Provide legal information
Reach out to potential donors
User Tasks
Once you articulate your site’s goals and the steps users must take to complete these goals, you must articulate specific questions or tasks. Frame your questions to ensure users can accomplish realistic tasks that reflect concrete goals.
Some questions that you could ask include:
Can a first time user find my agency’s mission?
Can a return user remember how to find my agency’s contact information?
Testing Metrics
Once you have identified what you are testing, you must determine what metrics to collect. Your metrics will impact the type of test you conduct. Below are metrics you can collect, broken down by quality components which were introduced earlier.
Learnability: How easily a user can accomplish a basic task the first time on the site.
Self Test/Self Audit
Scenario: You want to test your site's usability, but you have limited time and resources.
What/Why: A self-audit can help you find usability problems. By looking at your site objectively, using the Heuristic Evaluation form to find potential problems, writing questions and testing yourself you can easily surface issues that impact your site. See tech tips in rectangular boxes throughout this guide for additional resources.
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