Usability testing
What is usability testing?
Usability testing is asking people to complete tasks and observing what happens.
Key elements of usability testing
- Make a plan. Write down the purpose, participants and tasks before your start. Sample one page usability testing plan
- Recruit enough people. Don’t test with one or two people and call it done. Use at least five different people of different backgrounds. More thoughts on how many people to include.
- Choose tasks that people would actually think to complete. For example, on the CDS website, people think “I want to use the job application function.” Instead, they’d think of themselves as “learning about what jobs CDS has available.” Task writing tips
- While facilitating tests, be quiet. Ask participants to complete a task and then be silent. Don’t coach them or react to what they do. Focus on observing what’s easy and hard. Tips on what to say when people ask you questions.
- Look for patterns across participants. Don’t start making changes based on one participant. Fix what several people struggle with. Two possible tools for doing so: the rainbow spreadsheet and the rolling issues list
Tips for conducting usability testing at CDS
- Follow our guidelines for respecting participants’ privacy. Work with our policy team to create an ATIP-approved consent form before you get started. Speak to the policy analyst on your product team or ask Colin for more help.
- Interviewing as part of user research is generally exempt from Government of Canada Public Opinion Research regulation. But follow our POR tips to steer clear of potential problems.
- You can use our equipment and/or listening room for usability testing.
Resources
From others
- “How to conduct usability testing” from 18F
- One page usability testing plan from User Focus
- “Thoughts on determining the right number of usability testing participants” from UX Matters
- “Writing better usability testing tasks” from Nielsen Norman Group
- “Interview checklist” from 18F
- “Sample usability testing script” from 18F
- “What to say without saving anything” from Steve Krug
- “Instructions for usability test observers” from Steve Krug
- “Rainbow spreadsheet for analyzing results” from Tomer Sharon in Smashing Magazine
- “Rolling issues list for analyzing testing” from Dana Chisnell
From us
- Example: Usability testing plans from the VAC project
- Example: Usability testing plans for the an IRCC sprint
- Community presentation on lightweight usability testing
- Last updated by Colin on March 14, 2019