Hacker's guide to user testing.

We all know how valuable it is to get feedback from real users on the websites and apps we build. We can often waste days if not weeks of development time when we don't know what our users really care about.

Unfortunately we tend to not do it because it's hard to do, takes time and can be really expensive. Isn't it also someone else's job?

From my experience going from a big agency to small startup, I'll show you how to do it quickly, cheaply and also explain why it will make you a better developer.

Transcript

1. Hacker’s guide to user testing Tom Alterman @tomalterman
2. Who am I? UX & Front-end Lead at TrialReach
3. Who am I? Currently doing two people’s jobs* *please come take one off me www.trialreach.com
4. User testing Makes sure we are working on the next most important task
5. Why people don’t do it • “Takes too long” • “Too expensive” • “Too difficult”
6. Why people don’t do it “That’s not my job”
7. Hard lesson learnt Business requirement: “Must be able to tweet every piece of content on the site”
8. Hard lesson learnt Functional requirement: SOCIAL BUTTONS EVERYWHERE!!!!
9. Hard lesson learnt • Took a week to build • Horrible hacky code • Added ~1 sec to page load
10. Hard lesson learnt Did user testing at the end of development
11. Hard lesson learnt No one used this feature
12. Hard lesson learnt Example URL: http://www.***.com/articles/ada_178354/silversky- acquisition-complete?from=homepage- rzz&_afrLoop=550888908964000&_afrWindowMode=0&_afr WindowId=cc87g22wh_1#!%40%40%3F_afrWindowId %3Dcc87g22wh_1%26_afrLoop %3D550888908964000%26from%3Dhomepage-rzz %26_afrWindowMode%3D0%26_adf.ctrl-state %3Dcc87g22wh_61
13. Hard lesson learnt Clean URLs was not considered an essential task
14. Hard lesson learnt • Horrible code • Didn’t solve user need • We felt like idiots
15. The process 1. Recruit participants 2. Plan & run the sessions 3. Analyse the findings
16. Finding people Most time consuming & daunting part of the process
17. Test with real users Other people on your team don’t count
18. Reach out to the target audience • Your site • Emails • Social media / forums • Gumtree / Craigslist
19. Offer to pay them Everyone wants a £20 Amazon voucher
20. Test users remotely Easier to recruit and run sessions
21. Use a short survey Helps you ensure they are relevant users
22. Ethnio will do this all for you Helps you ensure they are relevant users
23. Call those you think eligible Allows you to check they are not weirdos or scammers
24. 3-5 users per test 5 users will help you find over 80% of the usability issues* *http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-many-test-users/
25. Go buy this book!
26. Prepare a test script See an example: http://bit.ly/testingscript
27. Use GoToMeeting for testing Grudgingly its easiest for anyone to install and share their screen
28. Act like a therapist • Observe • Don’t interrupt • No leading questions
29. Ask questions like: What are you thinking?
30. Ask questions like: What would you do next?
31. Ask questions like: What do you think just happened?
32. At the end of each session Write a quick list of the most important things you noticed
33. Look for the patterns 3 users - URGENT!
34. Look for the patterns 2 users - Important
35. Look for the patterns 1 user - Interesting
36. Share findings with your team • Urgent issues • Quick wins • Future considerations
37. Share video highlights Makes it clear what most urgent to fix
38. Share video highlights Creates empathy with your users
39. Test frequently At least every month, whatever you have ready
40. Costs are tiny Ethnio = £33 GoToMeeting = £29 Partipants = £60
41. Benefits are huge Will minimise wasted effort
42. Benefits are huge Keep your users happy
43. Benefits are huge Make you a better developer
44. Thank you! Come help me cure cancer http://trialreach.com/about/jobs