What are the best practices for testing and evaluating user interface usability?

1 Define your goals and metrics

Before you start testing and evaluating your UI, you need to define what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. You should identify the main goals and tasks of your UI, and the key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect them. For example, if your UI is an e-commerce website, some of your goals and metrics could be conversion rate, average order value, bounce rate, and customer satisfaction. Having clear and measurable goals and metrics will help you focus your testing and evaluation efforts, and provide you with meaningful and actionable feedback.

2 Choose your methods and tools

When testing and evaluating UI usability, there are various methods and tools to choose from, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Heuristic evaluation is a quick and cheap technique where experts assess your UI based on usability principles or heuristics to detect any potential problems. User testing is more reliable, valid, and insightful than heuristic evaluation, but it requires more time, money, and resources. Analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or Hotjar can collect and analyze data about how users use your UI. Surveys and interviews allow you to ask users questions about their experience with your UI, but they may be biased or subjective. Consider the goals, metrics, budget, and timeline when selecting the best methods and tools for your context and objectives.

3 Plan and conduct your tests and evaluations

Once you have chosen your methods and tools, you need to plan and conduct your tests and evaluations in a systematic and rigorous way. You should consider the sample size and selection, aiming for a representative and diverse sample of your target audience. Online platforms like UserTesting, UserZoom, or Mechanical Turk can be used to find and hire users for your tests or evaluations. Additionally, you should design realistic and relevant scenarios and tasks that reflect your goals and metrics, providing clear and consistent instructions to your users. Tools like Optimal Workshop, UsabilityHub, or Userbrain can be used to create and manage these scenarios and tasks. Finally, both quantitative and qualitative data should be collected from your tests or evaluations in order to answer research questions and support decisions. Excel, SPSS, or NVivo are tools that can be used to organize and analyze this data.

4 Implement and iterate your improvements

After you have completed your tests and evaluations, you should use the results to identify and prioritize the areas of improvement for your UI. You should also implement the changes that can enhance your UI usability, and test and evaluate them again to see if they have the desired effect. You should repeat this process until you reach your goals and metrics, or until you have no more resources or time. You can use tools like Sketch, Figma, or Adobe XD to prototype and iterate your UI design.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?