Usability Testing

Usability Testing

This post ties into my previous post about technical instructions. You will always want to test your instructions to make sure they are accurate. You never want to ship or print directions only to find out that one or more steps were left out are unclear. Some things to remember when performing usability testing. 

There are two main questions that a usability test will strive to answer. 

• How can my draft be improved?
• Is my communication sufficient?

Some more specific questions you may want to answer are.

• How well is the page formatted?
• Does the draft influence the test readers’ attitude the way I intended it to?
• Are my tasks easy to follow?

Pick suitable target readers that fit with the testing situation. This is a very important part of the testing because if a test reader is not a part of the target audience, then they may influence you to make ineffective adjustments to your paper. A vital rule for most cases is to pick a dentist for dentistry or an electrician for electrical instructions. Furthermore, the knowledge levels of your target readers on the subject you want to test them on should be varied according to the objective of your testing. For example, you are constructing an origami instruction for individuals with intermediate origami level, and you want to test the clarity of your instruction with a usability testing. If you select test readers with no origami experience, your instructions will be seen overly complicated to the readers and the outcome of the usability testing will send you a message that additional clarification is needed where in actuality your the amount of information/explanation in your instruction might just be sufficient for your target audience. Similarly, testing the clarity of your instruction with test readers in advanced origami can lead you to oversimplify your instruction.