Usability testing

Usability testing has users attempt tasks on your site, narrating thoughts. Uncovers confusion, friction, mental-model mismatches.

Method

Give user a specific task ('find a product for X and buy it'), have them narrate, observe and note.

Sample size

5 users reveals 80% of usability issues (Nielsen research).

Tools

• UserTesting, Usertesting.com, Maze, Userlytics, moderated or unmoderated

ROI

Few hours of testing often reveals glaring issues you'd never catch yourself.

What to do with this

• Test with 5 users per round, not 50, pattern emerges across 5 fast and additional users rarely add new insights
• Run usability testing before A/B testing, you'll know which hypotheses to test rather than blindly A/B-ing
• Assign specific tasks, "explore the site" produces useless observations, task-based testing reveals real friction
• Watch live with the team when possible, recordings lose context the team would catch watching in-person
• Ship fixes within 2 weeks of testing, insights go stale fast, long gaps between testing and shipping kill the loop