Get it right the first time through cheap and easy DIY usability testing

“If you want a great site, you’ve got to test.” - Steve Krug, Usability Expert

At it’s most basic, usability is about insuring something, such as a website, works well. Without usability testing results, design and functionality decisions are based on opinion. Despite the understood importance, many organizations believe usability testing is too expensive and time consuming to fit their budget and schedule. We will show how usability tests can be performed both quickly and inexpensively using popular DIY usability techniques. We will cover both analog and online tools for user surveys, card sorting, tree testing, first click testing, and user testing. You don’t need a lot of participants either—many valuable tests may be performed with as few as five subjects.

Takeaways:

What is usability testing?

What, when, and who to test?

List of free and/or inexpensive usability tools

How to plan and run your own usability test?

What to do with the data when you are done?