Usability testing is software black-box testing that helps you check if the product is easy to learn, easy to understand, and intuitive. Testers examine the ease with which the user interfaces work. We test whether the application or the product is user-friendly or not.
Usability testing is a method of testing and observing the behavior of the users to find out what works and what doesn’t work. Users perform specific tasks and the process observers observe body language and emotions. Observers also encourage users to speak while testing and using the application. Through this process, we can get qualitative and quantitative data and figure out usability issues with a product.
Why is usability testing important?
By testing the right thing, with the right people, at the right time, you can reduce the risk of building a product without a product/market fit. In the long run, this saves time and money and improves customer satisfaction.
Some statistics:
- 79% of visitors will jump to another site if they have difficulty completing a task
- 46% of the people leave a website after getting an unclear picture of what your website does
- 44% of people leave a website as they find insufficient contact information on the website
- 37% of people decide to never come back to a website because of poor design or bad navigation
- 40% of users never return to a site if they felt annoyed or frustrated during their first visit
The ratio of these bounce backs is quite high. No business can afford to lose this portion of its audience, so it’s vital to perform usability testing and making sure that you don’t miss out on web traffic.
User experience is one of the most important if not the most important aspect of making an online business successful. And that’s what usability testing measures.
Why is usability testing an advantage for you
It shows how your application is built
Usability tests will, first of all, help you determine how simple your web application is to use. Usability tests show whether users are satisfied with the use of your application and this is the basis for continuing and developing your business. The information you get in the usability testing process will ensure you are going in the right direction.
It saves time
Usability testing is primarily a long-term benefit. Introducing the application testing process in your company will allow you to avoid many problems sooner rather than later. The longer you develop your product, the more likely that finding potential issues will cost you much more time to turn everything around and fix it. With the development of the application, your product will become more complex. This complexity will make any patches very time-consuming. The fact is that the proper preparation of application tests can also take a long time, but it is still shorter than fixing major issues.
It saves money
Here we have a really similar situation regarding saving time. However, in exceptional cases, you can afford to spend more time so that you can afford to lose money. In business, success is defined as profit and time = money. Everyone knows how much money a programmer costs. Let’s assume that you found out about a serious issue late and now you need to get involved in the work of programmers who can change the content of part of the code. What if this problem was detected at an early stage? Dr. Susan Weinschenk in The ROI of User Experience says 50% of programmers’ time is devoted to patches that are easy to avoid. Imagine how much money you could save. Discovering the problem earlier is always much cheaper than discovering the problem later.
It reduces customer support costs
Many companies spend a lot of money on maintaining customer support.
The worse the UX design is, the more users will need support. This involves the need to hire additional employees who will respond to user requests.
McAfee reported a 90% decrease in customer support phones after making corrections to its UI.
The introduction of usability tests will, therefore, increase user satisfaction with the use of your application, but also reduce your costs.
Users are much more willing to spend money where they do not have to waste time making calls and asking for help.
It reduces abandonment rates
If your site is not friendly, simple and intuitive for the users, they can quickly go to the competition. Statistics show that as many as 79% of users will leave your site if they can’t complete the task in a relatively short time. 40% of these users will never come back to you. An interesting example of reducing the bounce rate is the story of Time.com. The company introduced continuous scrolling. Infinite scrolling showed that the bounce rate fell by 15%. Any of these small changes can cause your bounce rate to drop.
Because you want to be better than competitors
Users are looking for unique interactions that meet their needs. They don’t have the patience to stay nearby and discover what you have to offer. People realize that they have other options and don’t hesitate to entertain them. Usability tests will allow you to gain an advantage over competitors that do not carry out such tests.
Conclusion
Users know what they want and pay for the right design. Usability testing is vital because it gives you accurate insight into how your users perceive your application. Thanks to usability testing, you can be one step ahead of the competition and limit the number of negative interactions of users with the application, which will keep users in your business. Remember to always listen to what users are saying.
