How to Conduct Usability Testing & Why its vital for Designers

Welcome to this Design for Change podcast. Thank you for staying tuning in with me. In this particular podcast we are really redefining how a designer really needs to think in terms of solving a problem, in terms of going ahead beyond what normals which people have defined. And we are discussing a lot of pain points in the last episodes, particularly with respect to job, with respect to getting cracked of interviews and with respect to UX process design, product design, process research, everything, right? So one such topic which we are going to address today is how to conduct a usability testing, right? It applies to both physical product as well as digital products. And we are going to go deep why it is so important to really test it out before you go into the field for giving to your users. 66% of the companies increase their product revenues only through doing proper usability testing. This was done by nngroup.com so very, very vital step what you're going to learn in this podcast. So take a lot of notes. Let's jump into this podcast. Welcome guys, welcome, welcome. First of all, I'll have to tell you why this is very, very important for a designer, right? You need to get this clarity first. So before that we have seen lot of online websites, right? Like Flipkart, Amazon and we use lot of thing in mobile also like we use Snapdeal. In fact, if you go and purchase any product or maybe any particular services, or if you want to subscribe for any plan in your, in your phone, or if you wanted to go for a program, you want to check mentorship or if you wanted to check for any kind of a subscription, everything is completely online nowadays and people are doing lot many stuffs, right? Can I tell you something guys? If your checkout page is not properly designed or if it is not tested with the user properly, 69% of the users really abandoned that cart. You know how much significantly important it is. Every company, every industry, every business is really thriving for more customers, right? They needed more customers. In fact, they needed customers who can bring lot of customers. And they wanted to make sure they retain their customers for a longer time for that the very first transaction. What people are liking the customer to do is to make the first purchase, whether it's an online product or service or anything. But what happens if you're really not serving that purpose? Let's say if your checkout page is very poorly designed, if your. If your landing pages is not properly available, what people will do? This was a report guys by Behmard Institute. An average abandoned rate of the cart is 69.8 percentage. It only related to usability, nothing else. So that's what we are going to understand, guys. Okay, so now I'll tell you the eight steps involved in usability testing. So when we developed a product, when we did research, when we did ideation creation, everything is done. Assuming that, okay, so what and how we have to do this usability testing to improve that percentage of the user engagement step by step. I'll tell you guys. Okay, first you need to define the objective clearly. What is your real objective behind this product? Whatever you're doing, it could be applicable for physical as well as digital, both you can write it down. So clearly highlight the goal and the objective and understand the specific aspect of the product. What we wanted to really evaluate with the customer. Very clear guys, that is the very first point. People are having a lot of problems with this itself. They are assuming one thing and they are going into another path and then they are finding out this might be the user's requirement, this might be the real goal. No, be clear on that. If you're not sure, ask your competitors. Not asking means calling them and asking. See how your competitor is really having the product and what is the experience which your customer is getting there, your target audience is getting there. That is a parameter which you will have to check. This is one way to do. Okay. Second is you can ask your seniors or your peers or your big designers or your strategic designers who have already made this kind of a products or services. That would be the very good choice to check it out because they would have really analyzed the parameters and evaluated, got the results. And the third way is you start to define by going into the first principle method. Think upon if this product doesn't exist, this is the very first time which you are bringing into the world. What will be the expectation of the user? Or if you give suddenly to him without any expectation, how will the customer react, what you wanted to make them react, arrive that parameters and then evaluate it. So I've told you three methods. You can choose any based on the project nature what you have. Some project is very groundbreaking. Like from the beginning, from the scratch you have to do. Some projects are incremental, like benchmark product increase in conversion ratio compared to a product, product, competitor, something like that will be there. So you have to know the grounds clearly. Okay, very first step, very important step. That's why I've explained you in a detailed way. Second is recruit participants. Don't be biased in this. Who's your target audience? Make sure you represent your user base for that don't ask your friends or somebody to fill just to get numbers. That's a shortcut which designers really do. So aim for more diverse people. Capture broad range of perspectives. Ethnographic culture, different language people, different age group, different gender bias, different salaried people, different college people, age group people. So you get a very good recruitment for participant. The third important step is create scenarios and task. See, you need to develop a realistic scenes. Then and only what happens is you will have to make sure the simulation really happens and people are getting tested properly. Then choose a testing method, guys. See many times you can use any method. Like let's say if you wanted to. Let's say if your product is wearable, you can ask your customers to jump. You can ask your customers to run. You can ask your customers to travel with that particular wearable for a few hours. So it could be anything. Decide based on like let's say if it's a medical product. Normally we do in medical product with the standards, okay, There is a defined set of regulatory standards which we follow to do it. So for consumer applications it's different. For safety critical, equipment is different. For spacecraft industries, different. So understand that and choose a method accordingly to do it. Okay, you can do it in person, you can do it in group, you can have a supervised method of doing that test or you can have an unsupervised method. Hey, what is this? Jagdish J Supervised and unsupervised. In fact we have covered in our earlier podcast. But I'll give you a short glance if you are observing and telling your user, hey, do this first, do this second, do this third, do this fourth then you are moderating that particular test. Go here, there and all. Okay, you are guiding your user to do this kind of a test one, test two, test three. Okay, what is unmoderated? You are just giving a task. You are observing him randomly. You're observing him from the end to end. How does he really react without you saying how does the customer really wear the product? Is he wearing in a correct position? Is he clicking the right button to make the payment? So without telling anything, you just observe. That's called unmoderated test. We get both different data by using it. Okay, so then comes conducting the test. Okay, fifth important thing. So now execute the methodology. Ensure participants are really comfortable, get their consent signed. If it is really required, blur their faces if they don't want to show, tell them that their data is concealed properly. So get all these things done properly and product and conduct the Test. Okay, so you need to have a very interactive test that would be normally good. Don't keep a boring surveys or something like a big paragraphs and all because that really sucks people. And it takes a lot of time and it's also not engaging for the user that the, what you call that the kind of answers which they give. It will not be very, very accurate. You have to make it short and crisp. 15, 20 minutes is the ideal time. If you design for more than one hour and all, it makes a hell a lot of problem. Max to max, it can be 30 minutes, that's it. Okay. And then collect data. So you can use the quantitative method, qualitative method, that's totally up to you. You can use online surveys, you can have what you call, you can have a measure scale, you can have a link sent and they can fill their experience. There, there is something called mentimeter and there is something called Google Forms. Google Forms you might be knowing. And there is something called SurveyMonkey. So these are all the way in which you can send this data and you can help them to fill it out. Okay, you can be with them while they're filling. If you're sending to remote users, you can ask them to fill, but you have to guide them properly. Okay, this is how you collect information and data after this. The seventh important step is analyze the results. See, once you're collecting this information and usability testing is fine, but without analyzing the data, like let's say if your application is something like making a particular, what do you call it? Reading some news article. Let's say it's a blog kind of an application, what you have. So make sure how your customers are really going and reading that blog. What are the patterns, how much people are opening this particular tab, how much people are not opening that, how much people are clicking this, how much people are spending more time in this particular section. So analyze that, that's how you get more insights and then you find patterns and then you prioritize those main issues and then you build a design on it. The ninth important step is. Sorry, the eighth important step is iterate it and test again. See, once you analyze the results, you will find lot of improvements, you will find lot of feedbacks. Implement those changes immediately and Repeat the iteration. One more iteration, iteration, iteration. If you do 2, 3 times iteration, you will have a very good understanding of your customer requirement very, very clearly. Guys, let me repeat you this very quickly. Define your objective clearly. Choose your participants in a diverse way. Create real time scenarios and tasks. Choose a Testing methodology properly based on your product and service. Conduct the test, collect data, analyze the result and iterate it. Okay, so having said these eight important elements, I'll tell you what are the nuances to do it. Okay, lot of people have problem in this. See guys, the very first tip which I'll give you is use that environment properly. Okay? So try to mimic actual environment as close as possible. I'll tell you why. Because if, let's say if your product is used in a forest, of course it's very difficult to create a simulated environment of a forest. But you can make sure by telling a story to your customer or at least creating a semi forest kind of thing. Or at least you can take them to a nearest garden or something and then you can explain and feel as if they are in the middle of the forest and make sure they are also in that particular environment. And then you give your product to test it out. Mimicking that environment is a very, very crucial nuances, guys. A lot of people don't do it because people react differently in the field and they react differently with the product in real time. Right. Second moderator influence. See, we have to be very mindful when we are conducting this test. We may be biased a lot. We will tend to talk to the customer in that way and we will tend to be very what you call biased towards their answers. And we can also influence them a lot. That's why you need to be asking do you like this or not? You should not ask. Hey, you like that, right? Yeah, super. That's not how you make that particular question as. So you need to be very unbiased and you need to create that unbiasedness also. Okay, and the third is iterative testing. This is a very good nuance, guys, because the more you iterate with the proper feedback, of course you will get it for sure. The fourth is think aloud protocol. So encourage your participants to open up, ask them to talk, navigate through the entire product and service and pages. You know what, if you make them talk a lot, definitely you will get huge feedback. A lot of people don't do this. They only observe close. Yes, no, tick, go. That's it. I'll conclude the result. You will have to make your customer feel free after the test to talk about in this scenario. I'll tell you some mistakes also watch people make. See, mostly the biggest problem is biasedness. People really make a biased mistake and you need to be very much aware and mindful of this. Okay, and next is leading questions. See, frame your questions in a very neutral Way. Definitely the biasness will happen because of the way in which you frame the question. If you ask a question very, very neutrally, yes or no, then people will not be biased and they will also be very clear that you are also asking a perspective question. You are not influencing. Because see in front of your face, nobody tells you I didn't like this product because you've taken some effort to design. A lot of people want to be very smooth in front of you. That is a big problem in usability testing. Just because you took some lot of efforts like you are saying, hey, it took six months for us to develop this product. It's you know how much difficulties we faced in developing. Come on now, tell me how it is. Of course he will say it's okay only, right? Because nobody wants to hurt your face. Very few people really tell honestly, but 90 percentage people plus they say okay only. But this is feedback. You have to make them in a way. Hey, this is going to be very, very important app or application for a user. If you're not giving a good feedback, what happens is lot of people will get suffered because of this. You have to be telling me honestly, you like this feature or not, we will be happy. If you tell me very honestly, then automatically people will give you proper answers. So the way in which you frame question matters. And the major important mistake is ignoring a non usability factors. See, external factors like motivation, prior knowledge. See, this may impact the result, but the thickness you have to be not ignoring that, you have to consider that as well. You need to use that particular motivation, context and prior knowledge. What people had and how does it really impact your results of your design? It's really, really must. Okay, the fifth important thing common mistakes is overlooking accessibility. See, ensure your product is accessible for the user with disabilities. Also a lot of people miss that. I mean we recorded a podcast in inclusivity and accessibility. Definitely, guys, it's a very, very important thing. Even every application is making sure they are accessible. They are inclusive for all the disability people, specially able people to do it. Okay, so having said this much of things, now let me tell you the online tools which is helpful for them. Okay, you can use a tool called user testing. This is a beautiful tool. Guys. This allows you to run remotely usability test from around the world. It's a beautiful tool. You can try. It's a very simple drag and drop just like that. You can put your screenshots and test it out. The other tool is look back, it enables some live feature. You can take remote user sessions with features like screen sharing, video recording, what you can do is you can ask them to real time check how do they really navigate in the screen, which buttons they press, how do they really work. That reality will come. The next tool is optimal workshop. So this focuses on information architecture and allows for card sorting and tree testing. So card sorting is something like segregating into different different categories of results. Like let's say if it is related to landing page in landing page, if it's relating to checkout, if it is in checkout. So you sort out certain group, group elements and that's how card sorting is. Okay, I'm explaining you in a very simple way but deeper we can see later. Okay, so this is how it is and it definitely enhances your user experience, guys. Because if you use this online tools, it will enhance your user experience. It reduces your development cost. Guys, I'll tell you why. Lot of times people think it's a waste of time and effort, right? If you do a usability testing and analyze the user's feedback, can I tell you, it will save lot of your time in development. It will save lot of your time in reiterating the version 2, version 3 of the product. In fact, it will lead to more conversions and more purchase and more business. In fact, that will be a huge cost saving for you if you start it. So a lot of people don't understand this because your customer satisfaction really comes from that only they give you very positive word of mouth, they are very loyal, they become satisfied customer and they improve their conversion rates only because of this parameter. Because user experience, customer satisfaction, conversion rates, all these things are very, very vital. Guys, if you really wanted to understand this in a deeper sense, let me tell you one very important thing. According to a Nielsen Norman group, fixing a usability issue in design is 100 times cheaper than fixing it after launch. See, this is a stat 100 times costlier. People don't really get this. They think it's a waste of time and effort and they will pay for it and they don't know it. That's the point. No designer is there to tell them that hey, you're doing it wrong and you've wasted a lot of dollars, right? A study by IBM found that every dollar invested in that usability, it gets you return of at least 10 to $100. See, the ratio is 10x to 100x. So the Behemd Institute report I told you people who abandoned the cart 69.8 percentage. According to a report by ADO, 38% of the people will stop engaging if a website content is unattractive. What else you need? Right? So this is a big problem, guys. You need to get this clarity. And let me tell you some other prototyping tools also which you can test, which you can definitely test apart from the usability tool, look back and other things. So Figma, InVision, Adobe XD. So these are all some of the tools which will allow you to interact with your users. So what you can do is you can understand by giving them and asking them feedback. Hey, how do you feel? It looks like a fully developed product as well. And it facilitates your testing in a very earlier stage. This streamlines the process and there is a deep another testing also which is called Heatmaps and analytical tools. I'll tell you why it is important because see in the screen, we may not know how where does the user really touch? We can't see for hundreds and thousands of users, right? We can see for few users. Heat map is something called. There is a tool called Hard Jar. There is a tool called Crazy Egg. These tools will provide a behavior pattern and it will provide a heat map. Like let's say if you are keeping a picture and a text and you're putting a lot of things around it, you wanted your user to click that picture. That's how you take them to your conversion page and make them transact. If you have not designed it properly, what happens is user will not touch that particular button. Only few users will touch it. Like let's say if you made a user interaction point, if you triggered your user to make sure your interaction is leading the user to go and touch that button, it will make sure it is happening and user will touch it. So how do you ensure it? This is a very good tool called Hard Jar, Crazy Egg. So when people really press people, when they really click that button, it captures their point, it captures their dots. So hundreds of users are touching. It will make a very good heat around that region. It look like a red, like let's say a lot of people are clicking down. It'll show like, let's say if the users are little less, it will show in a different color in the bottom. The users are very less. It will show something green color in the extreme corner of the screen. Only few people touch it. One or two, it will show in a different color. So as a designer, when you're seeing it, you can understand how this is where the users are touching more. This is where is the user behavior is happening. This is how the click scroll is happening. This is how the attention area of the user is happening. By understanding this one single analytics guys, you can entirely change your usability of your product in a whole new different level. That is why guys, it is very, very important to understand this in a more more appropriate way. You know what a good usability tested product is capable of converting 2 to 3x more customer satisfaction. It brings you 2 to 3 times more customer revenues also, right? Of course it converges a revenue because 2x2 3x customer rate you are increasing. This was a Study done by usability.gov so understand this important aspect guys. What once you're able to get this statistics and the steps, what I've told you and the tools, what I've given you for implementing it, like let's say hard jar, crazy egg, you can do excellent usability testing and your product will be like way far different from your competitors and you will have a more empathetic towards it. Okay, so if you find this podcast useful, I recommend you. You can give me a best star rating in sports, Spotify and Apple. And if you need my mentorship support to learn lot of stink like this, like let's say this is nothing, this is just a scratch of the surface. If you really wanted to do a product design usability testing, there are hundreds of parameters which you have to consider before going into the test. There are lots of research work, there are lots of ideation, there are lots of prototyping and then comes the usability. So if you really wanted to become a product designer or a UI UX designer who want to really go into the nuances of the process and learn, I'm taking a very few students to help them grow in a very faster way through my intensive education program which is a personalized mentorship program. And if you are interested, give me that email dfc designforchangemail.com me or my team will come back to you and help you. Okay, thank you so much guys. Take care. All the best. Bye bye.