What are some suggestions for a good usability testing firm?

Software testing needs to be carried out tactically in a dynamic environment. Usability testing is one of the important types of software testing that is focused on improvising the usability-related aspects of a software product or application, such as product design, user experience etc.

The conduction of usability testing needs to be properly planned by the team in order to perform the testing process as per the required business expectations. The objective is to release the best possible product to the customers. In this article, you will get to know a few suggestions for a good usability testing firm.

What is Usability testing?

It is a user-centered design technique where an application/website/product is evaluated by testing it on a group of people. The goal of this testing method is to measure the intuitiveness of the user flows, design and content with users through whom the target market is closely represented.

The tests can be conducted through laboratory testing either with user psychology and usability experts or remotely with recorded user sessions and automated surveys.

When different tests are designed and administered, a person’s behavior can be observed and analyzed and also how they interact with the app or website.

This helps in identifying deficiencies, sticking points or issues, which would otherwise have not been noticed. User experience testing is also one of the important aspects of usability testing that can be conducted as and when required depending upon the project scope and requirements.

Following are a few suggestions for ascertaining a good usability testing firm:

1. The whole team should be involved: It is better to bring in front-end developers, interface designers and product managers in the room to observe and ask questions.

The team can then ask questions to the testers about the needs, expectations and pain points. When the users encounters bugs and issues and are experienced by the development team then it is far better than listening to a recording or reading a page of notes.

2. A shared plan should be tested and created: To ensure that even one day of testing doesn’t go unproductively, a debriefing meeting needs to be held immediately after the last session.

Usability issues, bugs, trends and observations needs to be discussed by the team members. Actionable takeaways need to be developed and assigned to the different team members. The next steps need to be figured out after the tweaks.

3. Videos and notes need to be compiled: All the right people should be involved in testing and the results need to be shared with the company as a whole.

Detailed notes should be taken during the testing sessions and thus the main points of the testing need to be summarized. A quick video that highlights the key insights can be considered by those who don’t have time to read the notes.

4. The use cases should be carefully considered: High-level tasks and use cases should be carefully set prior to the test. Instead of the tasks being created from scratch every time for carrying out the testing activity, “product research pages” have been created to archive and record the use cases for each product.

These documents are rich with research and information about each product we have, including things like direct and indirect competitor information, competitive research, user research, use cases etc.

5. A reliable remote testing environment should be set up: Customers who are located at geographically different locations should be bought together through the remote testing platform. Insights and feedback need to be gained from users who are located at diverse geographical locations.

Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing usability testing for your specific project, then do get connected with a leading software testing company that will provide you with strategic advice and support from a testing standpoint, keeping in perspective your business and project specific requirements.

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. I strive to provide well-researched information on the leading market savvy technologies.