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| Designing with Paper Prototyping |
Usability testing is the act of having a user interact with a prototype of a product before it goes into production. It allows testing of how a user interacts with an object before spending money on a demo.
Type of usability testing:
- Paper Prototyping (we will focus on this one): Make a drawing of the website and allow the user to interact with it as though it were a functional website.
- Card-sorting: Allowing users to sort cards with a word or statement written on it. This is useful when a website has a lot of information and the designer wants to know what is more appealing for the end-user.
- Link Affordance Test: Print website in grayscale and let the tester color in the picture.
- Heuristic Evaluation: Time how long it takes for a user to do a given task on a website. There are general guidelines for how long each task should take such as subscribing to the email newsletter of the website.
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| Paper prototyping can be as simple as a pen and paper drawing. |
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| Paper prototyping can be as complicating as a drawing done on Photoshop. |
Paper prototyping is allowing a user to interact with a drawing of the website. The drawing could be something as simple as a pen and paper drawing or it could be more complex and be done on Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. In either case, this usability test allows for the designer to observe how the tester interacts with the website and allows for fixes and redesigning.
What are the benefits of usability testing:
- Lower costs
- To find out how long a user takes to do a task
- Find out flaws in your website and how people interact with your website
- Analyze the performance of your website
Now try running your own usability test for your website. Here's a video on how: Do Your First Usability Test.
Sources:
- Davies, Thomas. "UX Booth." Designing with Paper Prototyping -. N.p., 5 Aug. 2010. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
- MacArthur, Amanda. "Different Types of Usability Tests for Website Design."Mequoda Daily RSS. N.p., 09 Jan. 2008. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
- Mifsud, Justin. "Paper Prototyping As A Usability Testing Technique - Usability Geek." Usability Geek RSS. N.p., 23 July 2012. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
- "Nielsen Norman Group." Paper Prototyping Training Video. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
- "Usability Testing." Usability. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
Usability testing is indeed a necessary necessity if you want to save funds. I never thought that “Heuristic Evaluation” could be so important. Especially when you need steer your way through a website or application, to find what you need to look for. Nowadays, modern applications need to respond quick and to the point. I like how you your blog is simple and detailed. Pretty much straight forward if anyone wanted to read up a quick general idea of usability testing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment. I tried making it as simple as possible so that anyone that did not know about usability testing could read this blog quickly and get a sense of it. I think the saying "pictures are worth a 1000 words" holds true here. I think by looking at the pictures alone, the reader can get a sense of what I'm talking about and they can visualize it. Luckily for me I found very good pictures to illustrate usability testing.
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