Course description

This one-day course will empower you to conduct your very own behavioural research in which watching users try to accomplish tasks is the most effective and efficient way to make engaging, easy-to-use designs. Learn from our experts about important usability testing techniques, such as planning, facilitating, and engaging stakeholders.

As with most things in life, the best way to become good at usability testing is practice! That’s why this course contains not only lessons built on evidence-based approaches, but also gives you an opportunity to apply what you’ve learned through a practical project. You will work in teams practicing planning and conducting a usability study and receive immediate expert feedback from the course instructors, who are also experienced consultants working on live client projects. It’s fun, it’s interactive and you will meet interesting people to exchange ideas and experiences with.

By the end of the course, you’ll leave with plenty of knowledge on how to run usability testing and improve the UX design of your project.

“The way we approach user testing will change for the better as a result of attending the course. Thank you!“

Josh Vince
Product Manager, TRX

Is it for you?

If you are responsible for making improvements to the usability and performance of a website or app – this course is for you.

Perhaps you’re a:

• Interface  designers who want to experience hands-on techniques for testing and evaluating their designs with end users.

• User  experience professional with some usability testing experience under your belt but not formal training or current procedures in place.

• Developer on digital teams who want to validate their assumptions about users.

• Project manager who wants to manage the usability testing projects/process.

• Marketing manager who wants to see samples of usability test plans and other deliverables from usability tests.

• Digital designers who want to learn the kind of practical knowledge that you can’t get from reading a book.

What you will learn

Topics covered in the course include:

Introduction to usability:

• Why watching users attempt activities is better than interviewing them about their behaviour

• Face-to-face  (in lab usability testing sessions) vs. remote

• Formative versus summative testing

• Remote research (moderated vs. unmoderated)

Preparing for a usability test study – creating your plan:

• How testing fits into a project or development cycle and when is best to test

• Targeting, recruiting and finding the right participant for your study

• Deciding on the number of participants required for your usability study and understanding when it is appropriate to increase this number

• Determining scope of study, what material will be tested, what to observe

• How to create a good selection of test tasks and how to test whether they are appropriate

• How to turn tasks into usable usability test scenarios that can be used within the usability test sessions

Run a remote, moderated usability test session:

• Pilot testing your study

• Moderation tips, techniques and how to avoid common mistakes

• Ethical rules you need to follow as a moderator

• Managing challenging situations- opportunity to share experience and stories from the field

• Options when it comes to note taking and knowing what observations to look for and record

• How to encourage other stakeholders to get involved/engage with the research sessions

• Step-by-step instruction on how to conduct your own usability studies

• Instructor feedback to test moderators

How to process the data captured: Finding, fixing and presenting back the usability problems uncovered:

• Analyse  your data with an affinity mapping and how not to feel overwhelmed

• Generating research insights and design ideas/recommendations

• Reporting your results effectively that will generate actions/reactions from your team/stakeholders

“Very interactive. I liked the breaks between sections to write scenarios, fill in the boxes and sense check what learnt.“

Caroline Lambert
Head of Customer Research, The FT

Learning objectives

After completing the training, you will be able to:

• Describe and discuss the benefits of and key factors involved in usability testing

• Recognise the components that make a good test

• Specify and plan an appropriate usability test

• Carry out a basic usability test

• Analyse and report the results of a usability test

Necessary for Remote learning

• Access to Zoom

• Access to Miro