Measuring Errors in the User Experience

Errors happen and unintended actions are inevitable. They are a common occurrence in usability tests and are the result of problems in an interface and imperfect human actions. It is valuable to have some idea about what these are, how frequently they occur, and how severe their impact is. First, what is an error? Slips

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How to Conduct a Usability Test on a Mobile Device

When it comes to testing websites there are many unmoderated and moderated solutions. But if you’ve ever tried to evaluate an app or website on a mobile phone or tablet there are fewer options. Usertesting.com offers a new mobile testing service which recruits users and records their mobile devices while they interact with your app

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20 Tips for your Next Moderated Usability Test

Despite the rise in unmoderated usability testing, the bulk of evaluations are still done with a facilitator. Whether you are sitting next to the user in a lab or sharing screens with someone thousands of miles away, here are 20 practical tips for your next moderated usability test. Shut up and listen:  You need to

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Usability As A Key Driver Of Revenue

Many companies understand the importance of user centered design in theory. Few can track how money invested in improving the user experience translates into profitability. By quantifying design efforts and outcomes all organizations can benefit from understanding how improving the user experience can improve revenue. The Engine of Growth If you can imagine revenue being

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5 Second Usability Tests

In a few seconds what can you tell about people… or websites? Some famous research has shown that student evaluations given after only a few seconds of video[pdf]are indistinguishable from evaluations from students who actually had the professor for an entire semester! There has been some relevant research on the importance of immediate website actions

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Memory Versus Math In Usability Tests

I write a lot about the importance of confidence intervals and making the most of small sample sizes. Recently, Dean Barker, director of UX at Sage CRM read one of the articles on margins of error and sample sizes and said: “I understand there is variability with small samples but I’m having a hard time

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Five Ways To Make Any Usability Test More Credible

Whether you’re conducting an early stage test of a prototype or late validation, these five tips can make any usability test more credible. The tips both temper skepticism about small samples and help you avoid overstating your findings. Count the number of users that experience each problem. Early testing is all about finding and fixing

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Usability Testing Is Not QA Testing

A user-interface problem is anything in the code or design that inhibits a user from completing an intended action. Usability testing is best done in the formative stages of development to find these UI problems and generate quantifiably better designs. Usability testing also has a summative role at the end of development as validation when

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Can We Trust Data From Professional Usability Test-Takers?

There has been a bit of an explosion in remote usability testing tools of late. Some of these companies also offer to recruit and provide you with users who are paid to take your usability test (Usertesting.com, Feedback Army and EasyUsability to name a few). These services allow for quick (almost immediate) feedback from users.

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What is an Acceptable Level of Quality for Usability?

Usability measurements involve human performance and because human behavior is inherently error prone, reaching the goal of 6σ isn’t necessary to proclaim success. Manufacturing companies that are considered producing “high-quality” products are usually somewhere between 4σ and 5σ. The benchmarks and targets that we set in our tests will necessarily need to be more forgiving

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