I’m not sure why, but website usability testing is often seen as something beyond the remit or experience of web teams.

I simply don’t buy this. I think anyone can run these sessions for nothing and come away with great insights that’ll improve their site.

Usability testing on 10 Cents pence a day

My user testing sessions are based on Steve Krug’s fantastic Usability testing on 10 cents a day guide. I really recommend you download it: 16 pages that changed my whole view on what’s possible with DIY usability testing.

The gist is: user testing can be a cheap, painless and highly rewarding exercise when it is run by the people who run the website.

Run your own usability test session

If you don’t do any usability testing or use a third party to do it, please give this a go. It’ll take about two hours to prep and perform. I’m confident you will feel it was time well spent.

Pick your audience

You should already know who your target audiences are. Pick one to test. I’ll go back to my Foreign Office days and pick British holiday makers for this example.

Now list the 3-5 most common tasks they come to your site to do. In my example:

• Task 1: get the latest travel advice info for the country they’re going to
• Task 2: contact the British Embassy for help because something has gone wrong abroad
• Task 3: get a replacement passport because it has been stolen while on holiday

Recruit your guinea pig

Invite a (non-web team) colleague or a friend at a loose end for a 45 mins session. Try to choose someone who is articulate and easy going.

Ok, ideally you want to test with someone from your target audience – a ‘real’ end user – but I don’t think this really makes much difference when you’re starting out. Once you have an established usability testing programme in place which has already identified the big problems with your site, then it may be worth paying an agency to hire these ‘real’ users.

You need a ‘Test Lab’

Book a room with a networked PC and three chairs. And that’s it! You’ll survive without the eye motion tracking camera for now.

Ask another colleague to observe and take notes of anything significant (you’ll be busy leading the session).

Tip: Try to get the person responsible for the areas you’re testing to be your note taker – they need to see this with their own eyes. In my example: I would (and did) invite the Head of the Travel Advice web team to do this.

Video recording the session can be really worthwhile – a 60 secs compilation of the best / worst bits can have real impact on other web team colleagues. But don’t get hung up about doing this for the first session. If you do record the session make sure the note taker marks the time on the camera with their notes – it saves a lot of time later.

Get into the room 15 mins early to check everything is working ok and the chairs are arranged – two at the PC for you and the guinea pig and one a few metres behind for the note taker.

Running the session

I think the key to having a successful session is ensuring your guinea pig is comfortable with the situation and understands what is and isn’t required of them. Let’s be honest, it is a pretty artificial situation.

I try to introduce sessions with these points:

• I will ask you to try and perform some common tasks
• I need you to think out loud as you perform the tasks. Example: “I think I want to click this link here because it has the word passports in it.” Some people find this quite weird to do and may need prompting if they go quiet
• I’m not trying to test you – I want to see where you are having problems because that will help us to improve the site for real users
• I want you to be honest about your experience and not to worry about offending anyone if you want to be critical

Ease them in with a simple task and then work through the tasks on your list until your time is up. I wouldn’t recommend any more than 45 mins.

At times they’ll get stuck and confused, but try not to jump in with the answer, no other user has the benefit of your knowledge when they come to your site.

And if they go off on some unlikely journey to complete a task, let them, just ensure they continue to think out loud so you know why they’re doing what they’re doing.

Hopefully you will find it really enlightening and gain some important insights into the usability of your website. I’ve never run a session that didn’t identify issues – often things you would never expect unless you had seen them with your own eyes.

The key is to capture what you’ve witnessed, make sense of it and its significance and work out what you need to do about it. That’s when the real work starts!

Oh, and don’t forget to buy your guinea pig lunch as a thank you.

Let me know how you get on.

Liam