Overview

Consumer Usability Testing is a consulting engagement that provides companies with direct usage observations on how consumers interact with their products. The goals are to find usage barriers to remove from a product or service so that more users can find and experience its value.

This engagement is completed over 5 weeks from start to finish. The test itself is often done in corporate offices but can also be done in professional usability labs (complete with two-way mirror observation rooms) by professional moderators.

The results of the testing are real observations of where consumers succeed or fail with a product. This helps remove the Usability barrier in the Consumer Adoption Funnel pictured here.

To perform the test, ConsumerEase consultants work through four phases: First they prepare a test plan to ensure that key areas of the product will be experienced during the actual test. Next, the consultants prepare for the test by arranging for the lab and audio/video equipment, as well as recruiting users who are representative of the corporation’s market segment. Phase 3 is the actual test, which occurs over a one-week period. Three users a day will test the product for 1–2 hours each. The goal is to complete 10 testing cycles by the end of the week and to wrap up the project on the final day. The final phase is the preparation of the results, which includes documenting the tests, creating an executive presentation on key results and recommendations, and presenting the results to employees and executives.

The engagement involves the following tasks:

• A kickoff meeting is held to outline the project
• A usability test plan is prepared
• The test facilities, equipment, and personal (including users) are scheduled and organized
• The test is run (over a one-week period of time)
• The results are documented and an executive presentation is prepared
• The executive results are presented to employees and executives

Results

The impact of usability testing cannot be measured better than the changed mindsets and charged attitudes of the marketers and engineers who experience it. Major product assumptions are broken down and rebuilt through the insight gained by watching user after user succeed in features thought to be difficult and struggle with or give up on features thought to be simple. Since the consumers are picked from the target market segment for the product, the marketing and development teams are able to build a mental model that more accurately reflects the needs and behavior of their consumers (which is helpful for future design decisions).

And although usability tests are not statistically significant—only a handful of users are tested out of a potential user base of millions—nobody can deny that watching 10 consecutive users fail to get a feature working indicates failure of the product rather than the users. Testing shows exactly why features fail and often how to repair them. Even better still, we see 90% of the biggest problems as minor bug fixes for the engineering teams, such as changing a label in a menu item so users can find it more easily.

Skipping a usability test in a major consumer product is like ignoring a bug that causes the computer to crash in a software product—both can prevent users from succeeding with a product or service. Just as marketers want engineers to develop bug-free products, engineers and management should require marketers to provide product designs that have no major usability barriers.

Beneficiaries

The key beneficiaries of Consumer Usability Testing are the product marketing and engineering teams focused on the day-to-day decisions surrounding their product. ConsumerEase will prepare a high-level presentation geared for sharing with executives or larger audiences. In the end, the marketers and engineers who take the time to experience one or two of the actual consumer testing sessions will benefit the most, as they will now have memorable images of how consumers really behave with their product, which always helps improve future product decisions.

Timeline

Consumer Usability Testing typically takes 5 weeks to complete once the schedule has been agreed upon. Time is variable depending on the location, the complexities of the product being tested, and any extra requirements on the number of testing sessions or the number of features to explore. Below is a typical timeline:

Pricing

The pricing of the service is typically US$50,000–$125,000, depending on the location of the testing, whether a professional lab and moderator are used, and how many users and features are being explored.

Example results

Consumer Usability Testing results are sensitive and confidential to the corporations that contract them, and therefore cannot be shared. However, the most of the processes and details of how these analyses are done can be found in the book Five Myths of Consumer Behavior, by Paul Allen Smethers and Alastair France, who have performed many of these testing projects in the past.

Scheduling

Consumer Usability Testing usually requires 60 days’ advance notice to arrange. Scheduling is done on a first-come, first-served basis timed at the signing of the proposal for the work (the appointment and travel will not be reserved for unsigned proposals).

Interested?

If you are interested in scheduling a project, please contact ConsumerEase with information about your product or service. We will work with you to define a project suited to your budget and needs.