Design Critique

Introduction

Usability testing

Usability test are sessions where users are invited and asked to complete tasks with (a prototype of a) product or service, while a researcher observes behavior.

Why conduct usability?

Usability testing allows you to identify problems that users may get while using the product, before spending time and money into development.
Without feedback from users, products may still have usability issues when they are released. This might lead to users getting frustrated and eventually stop using the product.
You can also conduct usability tests to evaluate competitors’ solution.

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Retroplanning of a usability test

All the steps of an usability testing can be completed in around 2,5 weeks.

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Overview Mandays

Preparing, running and analyzing a usability test takes around x mandays. Depending of the size and the amount of languages and devices you want to test.

use case

Title of the use case

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Step by Step Guide

1. kickoff 2. recruitment 3. prototype

Step 01

Kick-Off

During the kick-off workshop, the team and the client work together to create the project plan1. It’s an opportunity to explain the UX process, establish a shared language, and define roles and tasks.

Every good project starts with a clear kick-off

Duration : 60’

Organise a kick-off workshop with the main project stakeholders to decide on the target audience and the concepts you want to test.

Don’t invite too many people, but make sure to include:

At least 1 business stakeholder
Product Owner
UX Designer

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Kick-off template

This Kick-off template will help you initiate and organize the kick of your usability test. The goal is to run this template during a workshop with stakeholders.

STEP 02

Recruitment

During the recruitment we’re seeking participants who represent our target user demographic to provide valuable feedback in our usability testing sessions. In order to recruitment we first fill in a recruitment briefing template which we send to one of our pannel partners.

Title

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Pro Tip

Number of participants

Few participants (5-8)
Flexible study conditions that can be adjusted according to the team’s needs, think-aloud protocol, moderated

They don’t give statistically significant results, but help find the most common usability issues and reduce development risk at a low cost.

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Recruitement agencies

Here is list of the recruitment agency contacts :

Qualitative

Facts & feelings 

contactus@factsandfeelings.be

(contact person: katrien)

Mind Surge

 info@mindsurge.be

Opinions

 opinions@opinions.be

Quantitative

Dynata:

Rafael.deKock@dynata.com

Checkmarket:

sales@checkmarket.com

Step 03

Prototype

The UX Designer will create a prototype that will be used during usability tests. Ideally, you use an as close as possible to a high-fidelity prototype so that the participants can test out a realistic representation of you product. Copy must be finalized, in all language.

Create a prototype and run prototype user testing early give best chance at adressing user needs without high development costs.
Prototype should be made with a software that allows you to make modifications without being too much time-consuming.
Low-fidelity wireframes prototype can be used if you look for concept validation. It offers a focus on functionality and is perfect for a final validation of your concept flow.
High-fidelity wireframes prototype is recommanded to test the usability of your product. Due to the designs, test users will focus more on the design and less on the functionality of the product.

Wireframes VS UI Design

Wireframes: relatively “little” work invested and quicker to iterate, but can be hard to present to a client.
UI Design: very close to reality, but involves more work.

Want to learn more about prototyping?

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Check our prototype training

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Prototypes softwares

For wireframesto high-fidelity prototypes, you can use UI softwares such as Figma, Adobe XD or equivalent. They allow you to create design from scratch and advanced interactions and animations.

For simplier prototypes or if you have less time to develop a prototype, you can go for no-code solutions. A lot a softwares provide you tools to create an user flow and make it test.

Protopie (www.protopie.io) for example, provides high realistic prototypes that you can easily design and test with users on several devices. And you can export Figma and Adobe XD interfaces to Protopie !

checklist

Prototype checklist

Make it as interactive as possible, not only the main flow you’d like to test, so that it is realistic.
Too many fancy interactions create heavier prototypes and more time to load for the participant : think low speed connections !
Adjust your sharing settings so that anyone can access it.
Hotspots hints must be disabled, otherwise the results of your test have no value.
Update the prototype after writing your script.
Don’t forget interactions with inputs : on click, the field should be filled with dummy data.
Do a dry run before !

Duplicate the checklist in figma