In order to celebrate the  last episode of the Usability and Usability Testing 101 series, this week’s tips focus on usability testing. The final steps of usability testing, after you have prepared for testing and conducted the testing, are not only fun, but easy if you follow my steps. First collate the data into findings. […]

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In order to celebrate the last episode of the Usability and Usability Testing 101 series, this week’s tips focus on usability testing. Once you have selected your user groups, created tasks, and prepared for testing, it is finally time to do those usability tests! With all this preparation the testing itself should be easy. Just […]

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In order to celebrate the last episode of the Usability and Usability Testing 101 series, this week’s tips focus on usability testing. When creating what the tasks will be for your usability testing, consider purpose, objectives, type of test, and then develop those tasks. Don’t just pull tasks out of the air, develop your tasks […]

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[Podcast Transcript] Welcome to Screen Space, your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and digital media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. This is episode 20 of Screen Space “Usability & Usability Testing 101 Part 6—Analyzing and Utilizing the Results.” In this episode, I discuss what to do with the […]

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In order to celebrate the last episode (posting tonight!) of the Usability and Usability Testing 101 series, this week’s tips focus on usability testing. Once you have decided to conduct usability testing on your website, blog, or other digital media, you need to determine who you will be usability testing your media. First, you need […]

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Starting your users out with an easy task in usability testing will give them a  chance to get warmed up, ease into the testing, and will give the testing a more positive light. If you start with a hard task, users may become frustrated, which could impact how they do the remaining tasks. It may […]

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Users hear usability testing and think tests—maybe the SATs, GREs, grad school qualifying exams, or a math test from high school. I suspect few of us think of good things when we hear the word “test” or “testing.” The term “testing” in “usability testing” is misleading in many ways. We are not conducting tests of […]

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[Podcast Transcript] Welcome to Screen Space, your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and digital media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. This is episode 19 of Screen Space “Usability & Usability Testing 101 Part 5—Conducting the Testing.” In this episode, I discuss the fourth step of usability testing—what […]

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Welcome to Screen Space, your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and digital media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. This is episode 18 of Screen Space “Usability & Usability Testing 101 Part 4—Preparing the Testing.” In this episode, I discuss the third step of usability testing—preparing the testing. There will be two more parts to this series, where I will discuss conducting the testing and then analyzing and utilizing the results from the testing.

If you have not listened to the previous parts of this series, you may want to go back and listen. In the first part, Screen Space 11: Usability & Usability Testing 101, I discuss usability, provide a definition of usability testing, and outline the steps to conduct a usability test. In Part 2, Screen Space 12: Usability & Usability Testing 101 Part 2—Selecting Users, you can find information on selecting your users for usability testing. In Part 3, Screen Space 17: Usability & Usability Testing 101 Part 3—Deciding what to Test, I discuss the steps to setting objectives and selecting tasks to test. You may also find Screen Space 10 on User-Centered Design helpful.

I am your host, Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie. I conduct research and have taught in areas related to digital media, web, and blog design. Previously I mentioned being an assistant professor at GSU. However, this is no longer the case and I am currently looking for a job in usability, user-centered design, and/or social media. Stay tuned and I’ll provide details at the end of this podcast.

A warm welcome this week to my new listeners from Liverpool, London, and Manchester in the UK. Welcome to Screen Space and design well! Another warm welcome to my loyal listeners. Welcome to another episodes and thanks for listening!

In this episode, I will present the next step in usability testing: preparing for the testing. This includes choosing the order of tasks, creating written test materials, recruiting participants, defining team members’ roles, creating a written test plan, practicing the testing, and preparing the test environment. I will use the same example I used in episodes 11, 12, and 17—testing a photography blog. We’ll imagine we have a photography blog with a decent sized audience. We want to get more users and see how useable the blog is for your current users.

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In the forthcoming Screen Space 18: Usability & Usability Testing 101 Part 4— Preparing the Testing, I discuss recruiting and paying participants in usability testing (I’ll post the episode Monday August 6th at 12:01 am). Google, with its huge popularity, doesn’t even need to do their own recruiting. This blog post on a Google usability […]

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