{"id":345,"date":"2010-11-09T21:10:36","date_gmt":"2010-11-09T21:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/measuringu.com\/five-second-tests\/"},"modified":"2023-04-03T08:31:14","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T14:31:14","slug":"five-second-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/five-second-tests\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Second Usability Tests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In a few seconds what can you tell about people\u2026 or websites?<\/p>\n

Some famous research has shown that student evaluations given after only a few seconds of video<\/a>[pdf]<\/span>are indistinguishable from evaluations from students who actually had the professor for an entire semester!<\/p>\n

There has been some relevant research on the importance of immediate website actions and impressions:<\/p>\n

Visual Appeal:<\/span> Impressions of a homepage’s visual appeal and aesthetics happen within milliseconds<\/a>[pdf]<\/span><\/p>\n

5-second tests<\/span>: Give users five seconds<\/a> to look at an image or page-design and you get instant feedback on salient elements or problems in a design. If users can’t find their way or orient to your design immediately, then this can be an early indication the design needs improving<\/a>.<\/p>\n

First-Click Test<\/span>: The first click users make on a webpage is an excellent predictor<\/a> of whether they will successfully complete the task<\/p>\n

But what about task-level usability? While our visceral reactions to static images or teaching-styles might be reliable, would it hold up for a typical usability test?<\/p>\n

Traditional Usability Tests Last Hours not Seconds<\/h3>\n

A lot of time and effort goes into planning a usability test. In a typical lab-based test, users spend several minutes (sometimes hours) on a website attempting tasks. In a remote unmoderated<\/a> test users have more distractions and typically less motivation to focus on a website for long periods of time. However, users still typically spend 10 to 30 minutes working through tasks.<\/p>\n

Attempting tasks familiarizes users with the website architecture and usability. The process primes users to then answer post-test usability questionnaires such as the System Usability Scale<\/a> (SUS) which provides an overall numeric picture of the usability of a website.<\/p>\n

If we consider the SUS as a reliable measures of website usability, is five seconds enough to answer questions such as “I found the website unnecessarily complex” or “I thought the website was easy to use” ?<\/p>\n

7 Websites and 256 Users Later…<\/h3>\n

To find out I set up unmoderated<\/a> usability tests across seven websites.<\/p>\n