Evaluate the usability of a product by asking participants to complete tasks and then observing their behavior.
Varies depending on the number and breadth of tasks. Rapid usability tests can take minutes, while more in-depth tests can take up to an hour per participant.
Evaluating the usability of a website or digital product at any stage. You can test the usability of products early in the design process to inform your design direction, as long as you have an interactive prototype. You can also test products that already exist out in the world to identify pain points and areas of improvement.
Identify your research questions. What do you want to learn? If you are testing a website for the first time and don't know where to start, try identifying your users' top tasks and prioritize those for testing. Web analytics data, user interviews, and surveys can help you identify the top 5-10 tasks.
We recommend testing tasks that:
Tasks are what you want participants to do and should be succinct. These are for internal use and it's ok if they include jargon.
Scenarios are what you tell participants to do and should be believable and unambiguous. Scenarios should avoid leading language, such as the link label you expect the participant to click on. Try out your scenarios in a practice run to ensure they are worded clearly.