Usability testing(<Special feature>Usability)

Abstract

Usability testing encompasses a range of methods that examine how users in the target audience actually interact with a system, in contrast to analytic techniques such as usability inspection. In a typical approach, a user performs a variety of tasks with the application while an observer records notes on how successful the user is in performing each task: how fast users go, what mistakes they make, where they're confused, what solution paths they take, how many learning trials are involved, and so forth. This article describes outline of usability testing and illustrates how to conduct usability testing in the case of small user groups in the size of 4 to 5 users, and in the field, by drawing simple examples.