UX designLesson 4 of 5 in the course User research

Usability Testing: Methods, Sampling, and Inclusive Evaluation

5 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 5 match pairs · 5 fill-in sentences · English

Save course
Lesson progress
0 / 5

Your progress is kept in this browser only.Sign up to save it

Summary

Usability testing helps designers understand how people actually use a product. This lesson introduces its purpose, distinguishes it from related research methods, and traces how the practice developed.

Usability testing is a user-centered design technique that evaluates a product by observing people as they try to use it for its intended purpose. It provides direct evidence about how real users interact with a system, including where they succeed, hesitate, make mistakes, or become confused.

All flashcards

What is usability testing?
A user-centered technique that evaluates a product by observing people as they try to use it for its intended purpose.
What makes a test scenario effective?
It provides realistic context for a task without telling participants exactly how to complete it.
What is asynchronous remote usability testing?
A study in which participants complete tasks independently, without a live evaluator.
What is heuristic evaluation?
An expert assessment of an interface guided by usability principles.
What does the usability discovery model illustrate?
Under its assumptions, adding participants yields diminishing returns in discovering a particular problem.

Quiz questions

  1. A researcher recruits passersby for brief usability sessions because they are readily available. What sampling method is this?Answer: Convenience sampling
  2. What is a key limitation of an automated expert review?Answer: It may miss context and users' intentions.
  3. What does multivariate testing compare?Answer: More than two versions or combinations of elements.
  4. A website team finds that one button label produces more completed purchases than another. What can this comparison establish most directly?Answer: Which version performs better on the selected outcome.
  5. Why can recruiting participants with disabilities reveal usability problems that other methods miss?Answer: They may encounter barriers that checklists or non-disabled participants do not reveal.

Based on the Wikipedia article Usability testing, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapted into a summary, flashcards and quizzes.

More in UX design

All UX design lessons
UX designUX Research Methods, ResearchOps, and Ethics5 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 4 gamesPlay free →UX designAffordance Theory: Ecological, Design, and Educational Accounts5 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 4 gamesPlay free →UX designHick’s Law: Choice Time, Information, and Interface Design5 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 4 gamesPlay free →UX designUI Design: User-Centered Methods, Usability, and ISO 92415 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 4 gamesPlay free →UX designContextual Inquiry: Fieldwork, Interpretation, and Research Applications5 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 4 gamesPlay free →UX designUX Design Foundations: Research, Accessibility, and Iterative Practice5 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 4 gamesPlay free →