More about User Testing or Validation
The primary question that user-testing answers is whether the user encounters any issues when interacting with an unfinished or finished product or service. What is the utility that a user sees in the product or service? Is the user journey seamless or full of disruptions? Does the product or service fill a market gap?
User testing is a great way of getting user feedback firsthand and allows the researcher to take quick action to improve.
User testing methods utilized can be split based on the stage in the project when it is conducted – discovery stage testing, user research stage testing, and strategy and design stage testing.
Method
Purpose
Advantages
Disadvantages
Discovery Stage
To determine where effort should be focused.
- Allows testing a new idea or concept.
- Helps compare with competitive products and services in the market.
Time spent could be on a lot of pointless and regular ideas which shouldn’t be pursued.
Concept stage
Unconventional user research.
User testing at this stage can provide a quick and easy way to place an existing product in front of a wide range of possible user types.
- Difficulties of ensuring greater depth for the research.
- The problem of the ‘first choice selection’ i.e. the respondents may not take the survey with complete authenticity and attention.
- With the large amount of data collected, the process of data analysis is time consuming.
Strategy & Design Stage
To test prototypes and complex flows.
- Helps determine the strategic direction.
- Usability testing & validation takes place at this stage.
Incorporating solutions or design changes at this stage could be time consuming and would require an overhaul of existing design.
Advantages of User Testing or Validation
1. Feedback
Getting feedback helps designers validate their efforts on a project.
2. Next Steps
Data collected can guide the next steps to be taken to improve the product or service.
3. Benchmark against existing products
Data collected can help to evaluate the product features or the service being offered against similar and competitive offerings in the market.
4. Identify missed issues
Issues that may have been overlooked during the other stages of the project can be captured through user testing.
5. Online Tools
Through online tools a large sample can be considered for user testing. The data gathered can also be analyzed quickly and with relative ease.
Disadvantages of User Testing or Validation
1. User time commitment
If the users do not give sufficient time for feedback or to test, then the system or product can be off from what the user requirement is.
2. Scope of the project
If the scope of the project is large, then user testing may result in a large amount of diverse data that may be difficult to collate and analyze.