0
0
Introduction to Usability Studies in UX Research
You know all about the first step in a UX research study which is planning the study. It’s time to moveto the second step which is really exciting, conducting the research.
Let’s get started. A usability study is a research method that assesses how easy it is for participants to complete core tasks in a design. During a usability study, researchers follow participants as they interact with the product. The user’s feedback helps the design team make important improvements
to the user experience. Usability studies can take place at various points in the design process. You can conduct a usability study when you have an early idea, like a lo-fi prototype that is only somewhat interactive. Often this is called concept testing. You can also conduct a usability study when you have an interactive prototype. This is the most common time to conduct the study because it gives the design team insight on what needs to be revised or added before the product launches. You can even conduct the usability study with a product that is complete. You may want to change a feature of the product or test if the product is usable with a specific group of people.
Imagine this scenario, a local bakery has a website but customers can’t place their orders online. The bakery has asked you to create a new feature that will allow customers to
order on their website. You’ve created a prototype of the website that includes this new feature to place an online order, you decide to conduct a usability study to understand how easy it is for users to complete an order. As part of the study, participants navigate the prototype from the landing page to check out, acting as if they’re real customers. As a researcher, you collect feedback as you watch the users interact with the prototype. In some usability studies, you can even interview participants after they’re done interacting with the prototype in order to get more feedback. You might be wondering how much feedback about my design should I get? We recommend recruiting a handful of participants for a usability study.
For our examples, we’ll have five participants in the usability study. This sample size is large enough to uncover major user issues but small enough to keep the cost down. Let’s focus on one of our usability study participants, Alex. As part of the study, Alex tries to order a birthday cake for their son on the prototype of the bakeries website. By following Alex through the ordering process, you discover that Alex’s user journey hits a problem. First, the birthday cake that Alex wants to order for their son is pretty specific. They want a rectangular rainbow cake topped with rainbow sprinkles and a unicorn placed in each of the four corners of the cake. Alex selects a rectangular rainbow cake without any trouble and Alex adds the rainbow sprinkles by selecting them from a drop-down menu labeled decorations. Alex notices that unicorns are also on the decorations list, so they are selected easily. But then Alex hits a problem and veers off the happy user path. When Alex adds the unicorn decoration, there’s no quantity option, so Alex can’t order four unicorns. There’s also not a section for notes. Alex is not able to specify that the unicorn should be placed in each corner of the cake. To add to Alex’s frustrations the prototype site does not include a help button. During the usability study, Alex is open and honest about these problems. Thanks to Alex’s feedback, the design team can now work out solutions to improve the bakeries website. Keep in mind, usability studies give UX designers a way to test their designs and get feedback without much risk and a lot of reward. While the user feedback might not all be positive, it will always make the product better. Coming up, we’ll get to know the two types of usability studies moderated and unmoderated.
Why Are Usability Studies Important?
Usability studies play a crucial role in the overall product development process. Here’s why:
- User-Centric Design: A product may be feature-rich, but if it isn’t user-friendly, it will likely fail. Usability studies ensure that design decisions are made with the user’s needs and behaviors in mind.
- Reduced Development Costs: Finding usability issues early in the development process allows teams to address them before they become costly to fix. Addressing these problems post-launch is often much more expensive.
- Increased User Satisfaction: When a product is easy to use and helps users accomplish their goals quickly, users are more likely to be satisfied and continue using the product.
- Competitive Advantage: A seamless, well-designed user experience can set a product apart from its competitors, leading to higher customer retention and brand loyalty.
