Low Cost User Testing
A while back, before I did a little digging, I used to think that user testing took lots of time, cost lots of money and had to be done in labs. I've recently changed my thinking, thanks to a course I'm taking from the IDF.
One quote, in particular, got me thinking differently about user testing:
“One user test is better than none at all.”
I started thinking about the UX projects I had run in the past. All of them had been conducted in UX labs over a few days, using recording software and one-way mirrors. This type of testing isn't always feasible for small projects with limited budgets. I needed to change my approach.
After some reading about this guerilla-style research, I wanted to put it into practice with a live project. At the time I was running a small project with a minimal budget, so it was a perfect fit for this style of testing.
Identify What You Want To Test
What are the objectives? Having a clear idea of what you want to find out from your test is key.
For this project, I wanted to test the user flows I had created. Were people able to find the information they needed and was it where they expected it to be?
Build The Wireframes
I talk about this in the wireframes post if you want a refresh on wireframing. The idea is to have something you can show to users and ask them to do something with.
For this project, I created the wireframes based on the project brief, initial user research, the information architecture doc I had created and some initial user flows. I used real content where possible because I thought this would help me get better feedback when it came to user testing.
Set Up The Test In InVision
I've found InVision a great tool for setting up prototypes and collecting feedback. If you are building your wireframes in Sketch, then I highly recommend using the Craft plugin. Craft will sync your artboards straight over to InVision. Alternatively, you can drop your wireframe files into InVision. Once all of the pages are in, it’s time to build the links and check the flows. This is an excellent reference article for how to get your prototype set up.
For this test, I built the wireframes in Sketch and used the Craft plugin to get the pages into InVision. (Such a useful tool!) Linking up the pages, buttons and links makes the wireframes usable and was going to help find out if people could find the right information. Having the prototype pages linked also enabled the user flows to be tested.
Now It's Test Time
Using your objectives that were set in step one, come up with a couple of key tasks that will help you answer the goals of the test. Find a place where you can run the test, like a coffee shop with good WiFi (it's even better if you can run the tests in the environment where the user would typically interact with the website). Have a way of recording your findings. This could be a notepad, pen, screen recording software, or even filming the test on your phone. As long as you can observe and record what the user is doing, you are good to go.
To keep the cost low and the timeframe short I recruited six users that would run through the wireframes. I had three key questions/ tasks that I asked each user to complete.
Where would you go to find price information?
How would you find information about losing weight with a PT?
Can you find the contact information?
With the tasks explained I had my notepad and pen ready to document any observations that I found during each task. Having a recording of the tests would have been better, but to try and keep the timings short, I just ran with note-taking during this test.
Analyse The Results
This is where you review the feedback you collected from the tests. Are you able to answer your original objective, or did you find out something new? Try and do the analysis as close to the end of the test as possible so it's fresh in your mind. It can be kept simple with bullet point observations answering the objectives set out at the start.
In this project, I did the analysis straight after the tests had finished. The key findings and recommendations were written up in Google Docs, which was easy to share with the client. I also annotated the changes and key feedback points directly on the wireframes in InVision. Doing this made it clear which elements needed changing and how the users interacted with the prototype.
Amend The Prototype
Amend your prototype to incorporate the feedback you collected. You can re-run your tests once you have made the amendments, or you can take the learning and build the high-fidelity prototype with the feedback incorporated into the design.
I was keeping this process very short, so once the wireframe was amended, I ran through the changes with the client. Once we had been through this, the feedback and user thinking were taken into the UI design stage.
Repeat
Repeat this process as many times as you feel you can/ need to before moving on.
Steps one to six don't need to take long, it could all be done in a day. The point is to get more than just your own input on the experience you are creating.
After using this guerilla-style testing, it’s something I plan to do more of. Feedback from just a few users can be hugely insightful and help create better experiences.
Here are some further reading articles that can help with this process:
Sketch & InVision - https://www.invisionapp.com/sketch-prototyping
