What is Usability Testing?
Usability Testing also known as User Experience (UX) Testing, is a testing method for measuring how easy and user-friendly a software application is. A small set of target end-users, use software application to expose usability defects. Usability testing mainly focuses on the user’s ease of using application, flexibility of application to handle controls and ability of application to meet its objectives.
During a usability study, the moderator asks participants in their individual user session to complete a series of tasks while the rest of the team observes and takes notes. By watching their actual users navigate their product or website and listening to their praises and concerns about it, they can see when the participants can quickly and successfully complete tasks and where they’re enjoying the user experience, encountering problems, and experiencing confusion.
Role of Usability Testing
Design and aesthetics are crucial. The effectiveness of a product is typically determined by how well it looks. There are numerous software programmes and websites that, after being launched, utterly fail for the reasons listed below:
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Where do I click next?
- Which page needs to be navigated?
- Which Icon or Jargon represents what?
- Error messages are not consistent or effectively displayed.
- Session time is not sufficient.
Software Engineering, Usability Testing identifies usability errors in the system early in the development cycle and can save a product from failure.
Purpose of Usability Testing
The goal of this testing is to satisfy users and it mainly concentrates on the following parameters of a system:
- The Effectiveness of the system
- Efficiency
- Accuracy
- User Friendliness