Usability Testing at 100mph

Userfocus Ltd | 09 Sep 2008

Traditional usability tests require test participants to visit a lab and spend around 90 minutes carrying out tasks with a web site. With this new approach, called benchmark usability testing, participants carry out the test over the Internet and complete the test in around 15 mins.

As well as providing a speed boost, benchmark usability testing opens up usability tests to people who otherwise can’t get to a lab, such as people who live outside major cities or people who can’t visit a lab because of work commitments. It also means that usability tests can now involve many more participants. “Because they are so resource-intensive, traditional usability tests tend to use around 5-10 participants,” said David Travis, Director of Userfocus. “With benchmark usability testing we can easily collect data from over 200 people.”

Userfocus developed the system to collect behavioural measures of web site usability. “As a team of experimental psychologists,” continues David, “we’re aware of the limitations of online surveys. So our system doesn’t just collect people’s opinions about web sites, it also collects measures of usability like time on task, task completion rate and user satisfaction — the measures of usability recommended in the international usability standard, ISO 9241.”

Userfocus’s service runs on a web server and can be used to test the usability of web sites, intranets, Flash-based interfaces and rich internet applications, like Google Maps. The system was designed, developed and tested by researchers and software engineers at Userfocus over several months. This unique system is a UK-first and Userfocus is the only UK company offering benchmark usability tests.

About Userfocus
Based in London, UK, Userfocus is a usability consultancy and usability training company. Userfocus is a privately owned company and has been trading since 1999. Their consultants help businesses reduce costs and increase profits by making stuff easier to use.

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