How Usability Testing Benefits the End User

With automated testing and other latest technologies coming up, one may start considering usability testing to be remote and old school. Well, this is a thought that needs to be changed.
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Mobile applications are on the rise, and now e-commerce companies are all shifting their focus on increasing sales from mobile applications and websites. This is due to the fact that the purchasing and browsing behaviour of the users are constantly changing. It has become very important to have a mobile optimised, mobile friendly, or a responsive design website, or even better – a mobile application, to attract the prospective customers.
Thorough Mobile Testing is a Must
Your product needs to be tested with the intended users throughout the lifecycle of the product for effective usability. This is where the concept of Usability Testing originates.
The main agenda behind usability testing for Mobile Application Testing is to test the ease with which the different user interfaces in the application can be used. It lets you know if the product or software under test is user-friendly or not. This form of testing is a black box testing technique or specification based technique. It gives you an idea about how the users would feel about your app, if they would be comfortable with the flow, layout, navigation, content, and speed in your application or website. It tests how effective the features are in providing a good user experience.

Read Also: 8 Ways to Make Usability Testing Simple

Usability testing for Mobile Testing basically tests the following features in your app:

  • How easy your software is in terms of usage
  • How easy it is to learn your mobile app
  • How convenient the users will find your mobile app

The following five are the major components in usability testing:

  1. Learnability

It defines how easy it is for your users to perform the basic tasks the first time they open your app, and how easily they can grasp and learn it based on the current design.

  1. Errors

This parameter lets you decide how many errors the users could make, how severe these errors could be, and how easy will it be for them to recover from these errors and get back on track.

  1. Memorability

Suppose the users do not use your app for a long period and come back to it after some time. In such a situation, will the user be able to use the design seamlessly and feel acquainted with it? Will he remember your app well enough to use it effectively no matter how long he stays away from it, or will he have to start all over again to settle down and learn your app?

  1. Efficiency

This describes how fast an experienced user could accomplish the various tasks in your app. It rates their efficiency.

  1. Satisfaction

This factor describes the user satisfaction after using your app. You get to know how happy the users will be and how much they like your app and its design.
In short, Mobile Testing Services and usability testing could be said to have the following benefits for the end users or your customers:

  • A software that is easier to use
  • The learning curve is shortened considerably for new users
  • The software becomes much easier to use
  • The software quality is increased multifold

Mobile Testing Services always insist on usability testing for effective user experience. This is because of the following advantages it has over all other forms of testing:

  • It is possible to modify usability test and incorporate all other forms of testing like smoke testing, unit testing, functional testing, system integration testing, and so on.
  • If you plan properly, usability testing can turn out to be really economical, highly effective, and totally beneficial in all aspects.
  • Usability testing proves out to be really effective in discovering potential bugs and loopholes in the complete software system. These may generally not be visible to the developers, and could even escape testing. But, usability testing can find them all.
  • If one uses proper resources, which are experienced and creative testers, then all the problems that the user may face before the final release of the system could be easily fixed. As such, you never have to release a system with errors and issues. This helps in a far better performance and also maintains a standard system.

If you are still wondering why you need to incorporate usability testing for all kinds of Mobile Testing Services, Mobile Application Testing, and even for a Game Tester, then here are 5 reasons that will surely convince you as to why you should never ignore usability testing before releasing your mobile app or game:

  1. In the Wild Testing

Testing the mobile apps in the lab test them in the most unnatural conditions. The users are all sitting upright holding the devices stiffly in their hands and browsing the app with no distractions. Above all, the internet connectivity, acoustics, and ambience are all set up for the perfect experience. Well, does anyone actually use an app this way? No, right?
Researchers have proven that 73% of the users use their mobiles in the evening, curled up on a couch or their bed. While 69% use it during office hours, 51% use it on weekends, and 42% use them while travelling. Lab based experiments and testing cannot give you proper insights for all these conditions. Testing with actual people gives you feedback in the most effective context of use.
Participants are invited to take a usability test in their own context of use for remote task based usability testing. This way, one can get feedback for real world situations and see the outcome of using a specific application or website.

  1. User Feedback is Distributed and Representative

Feedback from the intended audience is the most effective and most important part of all kinds of testing. If the participants represent the target users, then you could ensure that the usability findings are absolutely valid without any bias whatsoever. Remote unmoderated usability testing you can get representation for user segments from all across the world.
It is not tough to get responses from a sample of 10 to a few hundred representative users that could fit in to a wide range of different socio-economic and demographic segments from across the world. This would prove to be really effective for the success of your mobile app.

  1. Agile Methodology

Mobile Application Testing in line with Agile Methodology is the best way to make our app way more effective than you expect. Development organizations have started to finally migrate to lightweight or agile software development to develop and ship apps and mobile websites.
Before and after every sprint, you can ensure to execute remote usability studies. It can even be done during the prototype stage, until your mobile app is all set to be released out to the intended users.
The story does not end there. Even after release, it is important for you to maintain the user expectations and user needs. Remote task-based usability tests give you accurate metrics for these purposes. Being lightweight, it is easy to execute. This makes it the perfect part of Agile Methodology. With accurate statistics, you could keep improving and deliver the users what they require. Maintenance is also an important part of every app.

You may also like: 5 Simple Ways to Dodge Test Failures

  1. Quantitative and Qualitative Metrics

You get to obtain feedback all throughout the development cycle of your mobile app or website through remote unmoderated research methodology. Testing various versions gives you qualitative feedback on the early prototypes. It also tells you if the information architecture and content layout are able to convey the value proposition effectively and as desired.
Usability testing provides you easy test findability, effective and efficient metrics with all your prototypes or live apps and websites. Benchmarking performance gives you quantitative and qualitative feedback all through the development cycle and even after that. It also gives you an edge against your competitors.

  1. Resource Effective and Cost Effective

Usability tests on your mobile apps and websites do not consume much time or money. They are effective in terms of cost, resources, and time. The time required is almost half, and the cost is almost a quarter of those required in a usual lab study.
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Lab studies could take around 2 weeks for planning and execution, and the cost is also high for incentives and set up.
As for an unmoderated remote usability test, one needs a week for planning, execution, and collecting data for about 30 to 300 responses. Besides being low in cost, designing and execution of usability tests is also effortless. Moreover, you also have the option to reuse already coded usability test plans.
One thing you need to keep in mind is that usability testing is a very wide area of testing. One needs to have a fairly high level of understanding to get in to this field, along with a mind that is creative and innovative. Patience, openness to welcome all kinds of suggestions and ideas, ability to listen to all suggestions, and excellent observation skills to be able to spot and fix issues are some of the most important skills that the people involved in usability testing need to possess.
Mobile applications have become an inevitable part of the human life. The world has become fast paced and consumer focused. As such, it is more important to offer the users a seamless and pleasurable usage experience. By using the unmoderated remote methodology and conducting user research researchers are able to get data right out of the real world for increased accuracy and efficiency. This helps you further in connecting with your users and growing your business.

The Pros & Cons of Automated Testing

Software testing is an evaluation process to identify any differences that exist between the desired output and actual output. Testing is in fact a quality control process for software. Great testing will enable the developers to iron out the chinks in software, thus assuring the quality of the product. Automated testing is the most effective and efficient way to provide software testing.

automation testing

What Is Automated Testing?

Automated Testing is the process by which automated testing tools are used to find differences between desired output and actual output by running a set of pre-defined actions. If there are no differences between expectations and outcome, then your project would be bug free. However, if there is a mismatch, then your developer will have to take a look at the code, make corrections and run repeated tests until the desired outcome is obtained.

What are its Pros?

Fast and Effective

Once Automated Testing is in place, you will be able to use tests repeatedly. No more filling out the same information. Everything is taken care of automatically. Hence tests can be run at a fast pace repeatedly and the risk of human error is minimized, making it more effective.

Time Saving

One of the biggest benefits of employing Automated Testing is its ability to save time. This is particularly true in the case of regression testing, which is retesting done after some changes have been incorporated to previously tested software. All the scripts associated with the changes are required to run. But in the case of manual testing, time constraints can make testers skip some tests, which lead to undiscovered issues with the software.  Automated tests, on the other hand, can be run at nights. This provides additional time to the tester, who will be able to focus more on areas that cannot be automated.

Cost Effective

Automation tools maybe costly. But if you are getting them for long term, they are an investment. They can find defects faster and therefore can do a lot more than a human can in a given period of time. This allows your development team to react quickly and saves you a lot of time and money. Are you a small company who still wants to enjoy the benefits of Automated Testing? Then, you should probably try out Independent testing.

Transparency

The test results of a particular project by a single tester are not easily accessible to others in the team. With Automated Testing, anyone interested can see the test results by just signing into the testing system. This results in a better final product.

Does It Have Any Cons?

Expensive: As mentioned earlier. Automated Testing can be expensive for smaller companies with smaller projects. However, such companies can depend on Independent testing companies such as Testbytes.

Cannot Replace Manual Testing

Automated tools, while being faster and precise, have some limitations compared to Manual Testing. For one, they just do what they are programmed to do. Hence they cannot replace manual testing.

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Compatibility

All tools do not support all UI objects and testing. Some are specialized for UI Testing, some for DB Testing, some for web testing, and performance/load testing.

In short, Automated Testing minimizes time taken and maximizes accuracy to provide better deliveries and lower costs. We at Testbytes have the perfect mix of Manual and Automated Testing to provide the best results. There are also a couple of interesting concepts such as ‘TestDrive’ and ‘Develop by Day, Test by Night’ which provide immense value.

On Demand Software Testing

In a perfect world where you have all the time and money you need, your software can be tested from the beginning to end tackling each and every issue as it appears. But, ours is a fast paced world with strict deadlines and fast results as the norm. Hiring a testing expert would be the obvious choice. However, it will prove to be an unnecessary expense for you since the tester has to be paid even when there is no testing required. The best answer for your requirement is “On Demand Software Testing”.

What is “On Demand Software Testing”?
On Demand Software Testing is a testing service that is available for you anytime you need your software to be tested. This service can be availed according to your testing need and schedule. You can hire tester/s on hourly, daily, monthly and dedicated basis. This method excels as such a testing team will be a mix of expertise and experience.
What are its advantages?

  • Controlled Costs – No need to hire a tester full time. Pay only for the actual testing hours and not idle time of testers.
  • Flexible Schedule – No need to wait till the development is complete, testing can take place simultaneously
  • Managed Services – No need to spend time trying to initiate and manage testing. Testing services can be initiated quickly.
  • Reduced Time to Market – Trained and experienced testers available at flexible schedules to produce better results at a faster pace
  • Transparency – Testing Status shared with the team on regular intervals and online to maintain high level of transparency
  • Testing Expertise – Latest and best testing tools and test strategy with proven track record will be used. If you prefer to use a tool of your choice, we can analyze to use that too.

What software can be tested using “On Demand Software Testing”?
You can avail On Demand Software Testing for any type of software that is being developed or going through frequent changes. Whether you have a mobile app or a website or any other software, “On Demand Software Testing” is conducted by professionals with testing as their sole focus and thus delivers the best results.