User Testing, User Experience and User Interface design explained

Saturday 29 October 2011 - Filed under Usability News

When you hear people talk about the above they are essentially observing the same problems but from different angles.

They are all interlinked to contribute to the success of a project which ultimately depends on the product meeting the expectations of its targeted users.

Let’s first break them down though.

User Interface design or user engineering refers to the general design of products which depend heavily on user interaction. This can apply to nearly everything including; mobile phones, household items, cars but most importantly websites.

Yes in the last 5 to 10 years there has been heavy focus on websites because they have become the mouthpiece of nearly every brand. Usability Testing has helped companies to answer the questions that are crucial to the success of their website. Most commonly why do Users leave my website?

User Experience design approaches Usability problems from a behavioral angle. Put simply how the user is feeling when he or she navigates the website. User Experience and User Interface design are essentially the same thing because they both impact each other enormously. By that I mean Behavior will impinge on the design and development of a website just as much as the design will effect the Users experience.

It looks at the Users ‘cognitive bias’, so likes and dislikes. Good User Testing can spot these even if they do not know about them themselves. Here though lies the obvious problem with the User Experience in that by its nature it is subjective and can’t really be ‘designed’ conclusively as it effected by individual user opinion.

Usability is the measure of how well a product performs in the real world with real users. This can also be very subjective but is embraced by most large corporations as a means to connect with their user base and gain the insight necessary to bring to market the best products possible.

So put simply when I interact or navigate a website I am using its user interface design, whereas what kind of mood I am in when using it would be a criteria of the User Experience. How easy or creative the websites functions were to use would be a measure of Usability.

Ive worked in the Usability Testing industry for nearly 10 years and its safe to say that a good knowledge of all three analysis is essential when conducting Testing because you have to know where they overlap to get meaningful results.

I started of working in design and development for a blue chip corporation who at sometime during the late 90′s were waking up to User Testing as a method as good as or if not better than traditional market research. Back then User Interface, User Experience and Usability design were considered by my superiors as a ‘one man’ job on top of the actual web design itself.

Nowadays Usability is really having it’s time in the spotlight. Its grown rapidly in recent years for reasons mainly due to cost as to employ an in house Usability Expert is very expensive. It has to be said though User Testing is experiencing acceptance in more and more board rooms around the world, especially as the perception of a company’s website, no matter what they do has never been more important.

Furthermore the Internet has become a very crowded market place where web users don’t seem to have the same kind of brand loyalties that were displayed before e-commerce. If a website does not have the clean User Experience that was intended, or worse gives off a feeling a mistrust then a potential client will just go to another Website and buy from them. No one in business wants to be letting sales slip through their fingers this way, because that’s what were ultimately talking about. Sales.

Statistics in recent years would back this claim up. Just 5 years ago it was predicted that e-commerce websites were loosing up to 55% of potential business simply put down to poor Usability. This highlights how important User Testing is today, because modern analytics can tell you when a user left your website, but they can’t tell you why.

The Testing User analysis brings together these three analysis’s to give you the Usability overview you want. Suitable for businesses large and small its a comprehensive 30 page document that highlights your Usability strengths and weaknesses in a clear and concise way. It’s really aimed at anyone who recognizes that their products or services don’t sit in a bubble where they are immune to competition.

2011-10-29  »  Sam