Today I did a days usability training today with
Optimal Usability. These guys are good so if you’re doing a large scale internet project I would definitely consider employing them. Now what was the day all about?
Simple – making stuff better. How do you do that? Ask people to do stuff, watch them do it, ask them some questions about why they are doing things a certain way, look for when they are having trouble and then fix it. Simple. Simple yes – done by most people no.
Usability testing has its origins in Anthropology or certainly it seems that way. Watching people and learning how they are using certain things – it’s about observing not asking. Usability goes then next step by organising and recommending solutions to improve your product.
Typically done for websites, this can have a dramatic effect – reducing costs and increasing sales.
If you can make a step change in how easy your site is to use them maybe instead of a 1% conversion rate you might lift that to 2% - double your sales without spending a dollar more on marketing – priceless.
So as they say in usability testing, one user test is 100% better than 0 (Not sure about the maths but you get the point).
So ask someone else to have a look at what you are doing, ask them to do something and see what they do.