Usability testing
Usability testing evaluates how effectively and efficiently people can use a product or system, often by observing them complete representative tasks.
Usability test protocol: A plan specifying a usability test’s goals, tasks, participants, procedures, and data collection. It turns a broad evaluation goal into a consistent session that can be carried out and analyzed.
Usability: The extent to which specified users can achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a context of use. Testing evaluates this broader quality through people’s interactions with a product.
Formative evaluation: Evaluation conducted during development to identify problems and guide improvements. Usability tests can reveal fixable interaction problems before a product is finished.
Cognitive walkthrough: An expert inspection method that evaluates how easily a new user can learn a task through an interface. Evaluators reason through likely user actions instead of observing participants performing tasks.
Think-aloud protocol: A research method in which participants verbalize their thoughts while performing tasks. Spoken reasoning can expose expectations and misunderstandings that task outcomes alone conceal.
Human-computer interaction: The study and design of interactions between people and computer systems. Usability testing draws on this field’s methods for studying interaction.
Summative evaluation: Evaluation that assesses a product or system against defined criteria, often near completion. Testing can measure performance against usability targets after design changes are complete.
User research: The systematic study of users’ needs, behaviors, and contexts to inform design decisions. Usability testing is one method within the broader practice of user research.
Task analysis: The systematic breakdown of a task into its goals, actions, decisions, and conditions. Breaking down real activities helps create test tasks that reflect what people need to accomplish.
Effectiveness: The accuracy and completeness with which people achieve specified goals. Task completion and errors indicate whether participants can accomplish the test’s goals.