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How many times has a report landed on your desk, you’ve given it a cursory glance then left it there to gather dust? Whilst reports are a valuable way to document findings of usability testing, on their own they will have limited impact. However, by combining said report with a rigorous buy in process, you will get many more members of your organisation on board and have a far easier job implementing your research findings.

Usability testing is the best way to find out if your site is effective – that is, will it work with real users and help you achieve your online goals. Watching real users interacting with a site or app (both in development and live) is the best way to understand the issues that interfere with a good user experience; it also forces those with responsibility for the site or app to ‘walk in the users’ shoes’ – often an unsettling experience!

Although qualitative usability testing is only undertaken with a small numbers of testers, there is still bags of valuable insight that can be gleaned from these sessions. Once these issues are addressed, it will not only help you improve your user experience but also increase your site success.  To ensure you are getting the most from your research (and for your money), here are our tips for top analysis

Conducting good usability testing relies on recruiting the right testers. With 17 years of usability recruitment under her belt, our recruitment manager, Avril, shares her top tips...

We acquired our first eye tracker in 2007 and what a beast it was! The size of a large, old PC monitor, heavy and consequently difficult to take out and about. However, it rapidly became an important tool for us in usability testing. Fortunately, the technology has advanced very rapidly and these days our eye tracker is a pocket-sized device you can take anywhere.

To start with let’s talk about terminology – we prefer to talk about a usability guide not a script. Script suggests a rigid inflexible structure – a list of things that you are going to fire at the tester.

Facilitating usability testing can be a daunting prospect. How can I get through all these tasks, stay on time and listen to what the tester is saying?

Since Web Usability begun way back in 2002, we have conducted thousands of usability testing sessions with hundreds of clients and testers. With these years of experience, here are 4 pieces of advice we would offer anyone embarking on usability testing…

1. Set clear research objectives at the start

Clients will often come to us with a long list of issues they wish to address during research. These can be wide ranging, determined by underlying internal politics and all in all a bit woolly.

Why can it be a problem?

Over the years we have worked for a number of charities, all doing amazing things. Optimising online donation journeys is often a key objective of conducting UX research. Arguably, one of the main reasons for a charity to have a website is to generate donations. However, many make the process long winded and laborious.