Usability Testing
Cost of not doing
Countless business, large and small neglect usability testing. It's not surprising why - it's an extra step and takes time. But the cost can be enormous and hidden - prospective customers try a product, become quickly frustrated, give up and move on. Worse, the company does not even know about these loses. For the customers that persevere they eat up customer service staff time - and often management does not realize how much time is being consumed. Then there is word of mouth - who would recommend a product to a friend or colleague that is endlessly frustrating? We've seen these issues even with fortune 500 companies that easily have the resources to do usability testing, but due to ineffective management structures, awareness of the waste does not flow up to the top.
cUSTOMIZED TESTING SERVICE
Usability testing is a method used to uncover problems with a product or system. This type of testing is primarily focused on the product's design, navigation, and overall user experience. The goal of usability testing is to identify any usability problems and potentially recommend corrective actions. Usability testing involves:
Developing realistic tasks or scenarios for participants to perform.
Perform the tasks while taking notes or observing others performing the tasks.
Review the collected data and observations to identify patterns and common problems.
Make suggestions for improving the product's usability.
After implementing the changes, retest to ensure that the problems have been resolved and no new issues have arisen.
Benefits of usability testing include:
Improving user satisfaction
Reducing user frustration
Reducing customer attrition or churn
Increasing the success of the product in the market
Reducing customer service
Examples of tusability feedback
Major ride hailing firm:
After a ride I get an email on my phone with a button to rate the ride.
I click on the button.
Then I get a login form. I'm thinking, "are you kidding - you want me to lookup my login and password just to help this company". OK, it was a really nice driver and I wanted to give a good rating so let's press on.
Then I see a field asking for phone number or email so I pick phone number.
Next I read that it wants a code sent to my phone. Really? I'm giving a simple rating, not withdrawing money from a bank.
So I swipe down to get my text messages for the code.
Copy to clipboard.
Paste.
I read "Welcome back. Not you?" Enter password.
Browser helps me enter password.
Hit Next button.
I see a row of five stars and I click on the 5th star.
Another screen pops up with the stars again.
I click again on the 5th star.
Click Submit.
Summary
It took 15 steps to do this company and it's clients a favor of giving an opinion.
To top things off, no "thank you" for trudging thru the endless process.
Recommendation
Get the steps down to 2 or 3 clicks ideally - certainly less than 15.
Ecommerce site
Received an email that my credit card failed during a charge attempt.
A link brings me to a login page.
Then to a password page.
Then to a 2FA page.
Then I enter the new card and make it default.
Then I continued to get notices of the declined card.
I replied that I updated the card.
Then I got an email that said the account was fine and offered to help find another account that might be involved.
I replied to the email not realizing that the From address was a no-reply so I got an email about that.
Then I searched the email for how to reply and found a 4 step procedure to initiate a chat:
Please enable pop-ups from your browser settings to allow the chat window to open successfully. (How many clicks would that take?)
Click “Reply” from this case. (I don't see any place to click Reply).
Select “Chat/ Call ” from the contact method options. (Where is that?)
Click “Submit” and we will assist you straight away.
It turned out that the issue was another account.
Summary
It took 11 steps to give this company my money and the issue is still not resolved.
Recommendations
Make the process easier.
Don't ask for information in a no-reply email.
Clarify which account is involved in the original email.
Auction site
Got an offer for an item for sale and clicked on the Reply button.
The offer showed the price offered along with a ship to location but the listing was for pickup only.
I clicked on the buyer's link which brought me to a page where I could click to contact the user for clarification.
That brought me to an option to ask a question but needed the listing number which I had to search for.
Then it brought me to the general message page with no way to contact the buyer.
Back tracking, I found a way to ask the buyer on another page whether he knows the listing is pickup only.
Summary
The process is cumbersome and buggy.
Recommendations
Make it easier to ask a question about an offer.
Don't show a shipping location for a pickup-only listing.
Don't make the user search for the listing number.
For contacting a buyer, don't link to a page that provides no way to contact the buyer.
GET IN TOUCH NOW
Connect with us today! Whether you have questions, need assistance, or want to explore partnership opportunities, we're here to help. Don't hesitate, get in touch now and let's start the conversation.