User testing = website success?

Opening a new website or launching a redesign of an existing website is an exciting time. Still, no matter how impressive your site looks or how much thought went into the information architecture and design, it won't succeed unless real users can navigate it intuitively and accomplish their goals. User testing is essential before going live with any new website or significant site updates.

What is User Testing?

User testing refers to having sample users representing your target audience attempt to use your website or app to note areas of confusion, frustration, or difficulty. The goal of user testing is to identify usability issues that may derail your project. These include shortcomings in navigation or user experience, bugs or technical problems, and places where crucial information or functionality is unclear or hard to find. With this feedback, the site can be iteratively improved before the poor user experience causes real users to abandon it. You can conduct user testing remotely, at dedicated testing facilities with two-way mirrors, or more casually by watching people use prototypes or live sites.

Why User Testing Matters

While web designers and developers have great intentions and do their best to create usable sites, they suffer from the "curse of knowledge" - being so close to the project and familiar with the content that common usability hurdles become invisible. Fresh eyes from real users quickly reveal places where things aren't as self-explanatory as the team assumed.

User testing also provides insight into how people in your target audience think about and approach the tasks your site or app is designed for. These insights can be quite eye-opening and lead to powerful improvements in the user experience, information architecture, and overall usability.

In an ideal situation, user testing would be conducted throughout the design and prelaunch process to ensure the product meets user needs. It's far too easy for websites to become overly complex, clever for the sake of being clever, or organized illogically when designers and stakeholders only consider their perspectives.

When to Conduct User Testing

The most beneficial and cost-effective approach is to build user testing into your website project plan by initially testing paper prototypes or wireframes. Testing at this early stage allows you to inexpensively validate proposed user flows, navigation, labels, and overall usability before visuals are designed or code is written.

Additional user testing should occur after visual design before programming to test the user interface and again after programming to test the live, functioning website. Significant new features or areas of a website should also undergo usability testing as they are developed.

Don't skip this critical step! Even minor usability issues multiply into major hurdles when real users encounter them. Investing time and reasonable costs in user testing helps ensure your new website achieves its goals and provides excellent user experience.