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User Testing Articles & Videos

  • 5 Facilitation Principles for Both UX Workshops and User Tests

    Both UX workshops and usability tests benefit when facilitators are focused on goals, follow a meeting guide yet are open to improvisation, encourage participants to act, and don’t talk too much.

  • UX Research Made Agile

    Test early and often is a key recommendation for UX research. Dora Brune shares her approach, including regular Open Test Labs to engage more product teams and make user research more agile. Kinder Eggs make for a nice warmup task, even in remote tests. (Recorded at a participant panel at the UX Conference.)

  • Using a Translator During Usability Testing

    Usability studies with international users can be very informative, but if you don't speak the foreign language, you will need interpretation to understand the user (and for the user to understand you). These 5 guidelines will improve the value of translated research sessions.

  • Recruiting and Screening Candidates for User Research Projects

    Know the inherent biases in your recruiting process and avoid them in order to recruit study participants that are representative for your target audience.

  • Remote Usability Testing: Study Guide

    Unsure where to start? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn about conducting user testing remotely.

  • Advanced User Testing Methods for Accelerating Innovation

    Two user research methods allow you to quickly test a large number of design alternatives, thus accelerating UX innovation. Rapid iterative design and within-subjects testing of multiple alternate designs aren't for every project, but are great when they do apply.

  • Limited Usability Testing and Business Decisions

    Some business stakeholders say that 5 test users can't represent all customers, and so it's too dangerous to release a new design. Better to keep existing workflows unchanged. How to respond to such claims.

  • Recruiting Expert Users as Usability Study Participants

    User research, especially for complex apps and domain-specific design, may require study participants with high expertise who can be difficult to recruit. Here are 5 tips for getting expert users.

  • Triangulation: Combine Findings from Multiple User Research Methods

    Improve design decisions by looking at the problem from multiple points of view: combine multiple types of data or data from several UX research methods.

  • Qualitative Usability Testing: Study Guide

    Unsure where to start? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn about planning, conducting, and analyzing qualitative user testing.

  • Partner with Other Research Teams in Your Organization

    To gain a holistic picture of your users, exchange data with the non-UX teams in your company who are collecting other forms of customer data, besides the user research you do yourself. You gain; they gain.

  • Remote Usability Testing Costs

    We compare the budgets needed for different kinds of qualitative user research: in-person usability testing vs. remote studies run by software (unmoderated) or run by a human moderator.

  • User Research Repositories for Cross-Functional Teams

    Tips for placing all information about users in a single place, so that the entire UX team can leverage this knowledge. Eden Lazaness shares her experience and demos the tools her team used. This was filmed during a participant experience panel after a recent UX Conference.

  • 5 Facilitation Mistakes to Avoid During User Interviews

    Some common mistakes to avoid in UX interviews include poor rapport, multitasking, leading, insufficient probing, and poorly managed observers.

  • Three Levels of Pain Points in Customer Experience

    Pain points are problems that occur at the different levels of the customer experience: interaction level, customer-journey level, or relationship level.

  • International Usability Testing: Why You Need It

    User testing in different countries helps identify culturally specific usability issues. Testing correctly and at the right time will help you thrive in a new market.

  • Usability Testing for Content

    Usability testing can yield valuable insights about your content. Make sure you test with the correct users, carefully craft the tasks, and ask the right follow-up questions.

  • Comparing Qualitative and Quantitative UX Research

    Qualitative and quantitative are both useful types of user research, but involve different methods and answer different questions for your UX design process. Use both!

  • Tips for Motivating Stakeholders to Participate in User Research

    When stakeholders observe user research sessions, the credibility and acceptance of findings will increase. Since they are busy, make it easy to participate and work on increasing the value they get out of going.

  • Internal vs. External Validity of UX Studies

    Poorly designed qualitative or quantitative research may produce invalid results. Avoid encouraging certain responses or behaviors and make sure that your study conditions and participants are representative.

  • The Case for Remote Moderated Usability Testing

    Remote usability studies can be run completely by software (unmoderated), or a human UX researcher can facilitate the study, even if the test participant is remote (at home or their own office, rather than yours).

  • Virtual UX Conference Q&A With Jakob Nielsen

    At the first Virtual UX Conference, Jakob Nielsen answered participant questions about topics ranging from user-experience careers and skill development to foldable smartphones and the future of user interfaces.

  • Qualitative vs. Quantitative UX Research

    Qualitative and quantitative methods both have their place in user research, but they address different issues in the UX design process. Understand the differences to pick the right method to learn what you need.

  • 3rd Pillar of Usability Testing: Skilled Facilitator (video 3 of 3)

    To get useful and valid results from a usability study requires a skilled facilitator who avoids biasing the test while ensuring that the users are comfortable. And who can interpret the participants' actions and statements correctly.

  • 2nd Pillar of Usability Testing: Appropriate Tasks (video 2 of 3)

    To learn something useful from a usability study, you must have the test participants perform tasks that are representative of typical user goals, while avoiding bias caused by giving too detailed directions or hints.

  • 1st Pillar of Usability Testing: Typical Users (video 1 of 3)

    The foundation of valid usability studies is to recruit representative test participants: you should test with users from your target audience.

  • Between-Subject vs. Within-Subject Study Design in User Research

    There are two ways to structure a UX research study when we're testing two (or more) designs: we can have each design tested by different people, or we can reuse the same users for all conditions. Each approach has some advantages and problems.

  • Discount Usability 30 Years

    For 30 years, the recommendations have remained the same for improving usability in a UX design project on a tight budget: simplified user testing with 5 users, early test of paper prototypes, and heuristic evaluation.

  • User Testing with Sensitive Data

    How to conduct user research for systems with confidential or otherwise sensitive data, for example in domains like healthcare or financial services, where it can be problematic to record screens or otherwise share the user's information.

  • Formative vs. Summative Usability Evaluation

    Usability testing and other UX evaluation methods can be divided into two major categories: formative evaluation and summative evaluation. Both have their place, but at different stages in the design lifecycle, and they have different characteristics, for example in the number of test participants needed for a good study.

  • Usability Testing with 5 Users: Information Foraging (video 3 of 3)

    Usability testing is similar to how wild animals hunt for food: we're trying to hunt down the design flaws in the user interface and must optimize a series of studies for total gain, rather than spend too much on any one study.

  • How To Setup a Mobile Usability Test

    There are a lot of elements involved in a mobile usability test. In this video, we'll walk you through an example test setup, including the necessary equipment, and discuss how to prepare for a test.

  • Usability Testing with 5 Users: ROI Criteria (video 2 of 3)

    The number of test participants for qualitative usability testing that optimizes return-on-investment is determined by 2 parameters: the facilitator's observational skills and the design team's speed when generating the next design iteration.

  • How to Test Visual Design

    Visual design details like fonts and colors can have subtle but important effects on the overall user experience. Use research methods that are sensitive to these effects to test your visual design.

  • Usability Testing with 5 Users: Design Process (video 1 of 3)

    Formative usability testing is best done with a small number of study participants, so that you have time and budget to test more design iterations of the user interface.

  • The Word "Validate" Undermines UX Effectiveness

    Our words define UX research goals for users, stakeholders, and teams. Turning UX research into improved design is already challenging. Why make it more so by setting unsuitable expectations with the words we use to describe research?

  • How to Setup a Desktop Usability Test

    There are a lot of elements involved in usability studies with a desktop computer. In this video, we'll walk you through an example test setup, including the necessary equipment, and discuss how to prepare for a test.

  • User Testing: Why & How (Jakob Nielsen)

    There is no excuse for not performing usability studies. They’re fast and cheap, and very convincing. Test with representative customers using realistic task, then be amazed by what you observe.

  • 5-Second Usability Test

    The 5-second test is a simple usability technique to help designers gauge the audience’s first impressions of a webpage.

  • User Testing Facilitation Techniques

    Facilitate better usability studies with these 3 techniques: Echo, Boomerang, and Columbo. These methods allow you to get clarification from participants with minimal disruption or bias.

  • 5 Facilitation Principles for Both UX Workshops and User Tests

    Both UX workshops and usability tests benefit when facilitators are focused on goals, follow a meeting guide yet are open to improvisation, encourage participants to act, and don’t talk too much.

  • Recruiting and Screening Candidates for User Research Projects

    Know the inherent biases in your recruiting process and avoid them in order to recruit study participants that are representative for your target audience.

  • Remote Usability Testing: Study Guide

    Unsure where to start? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn about conducting user testing remotely.

  • Qualitative Usability Testing: Study Guide

    Unsure where to start? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn about planning, conducting, and analyzing qualitative user testing.

  • 5 Facilitation Mistakes to Avoid During User Interviews

    Some common mistakes to avoid in UX interviews include poor rapport, multitasking, leading, insufficient probing, and poorly managed observers.

  • Three Levels of Pain Points in Customer Experience

    Pain points are problems that occur at the different levels of the customer experience: interaction level, customer-journey level, or relationship level.

  • International Usability Testing: Why You Need It

    User testing in different countries helps identify culturally specific usability issues. Testing correctly and at the right time will help you thrive in a new market.

  • Internal vs. External Validity of UX Studies

    Poorly designed qualitative or quantitative research may produce invalid results. Avoid encouraging certain responses or behaviors and make sure that your study conditions and participants are representative.

  • How to Test Content with Users

    When evaluating content, pay extra attention to whom you recruit. Closely tailor tasks to your participants and get comfortable with silence.

  • How and Why to Recruit Backup Participants (aka “Floaters”) in User Research

    Sometimes you should intentionally overrecruit test participants for one-on-one user-research studies. Backup participants must be recruited according to the same screening criteria and paid at least as much as regular participants.

  • Catching Problem Participants in Remote Unmoderated Studies

    Identify outliers, cheaters, and professional participants and remove their data from your analysis.

  • Remote Usability-Testing Costs: Moderated vs. Unmoderated

    Exact costs will vary, but an unmoderated 5-participant study may be 20–40% cheaper than a moderated study, and may save around 20 hours of researcher time.

  • Benchmarking UX: Tracking Metrics

    Quantitatively evaluate a product or service’s user experience by using metrics to gauge its relative performance against a meaningful standard.

  • Remote Moderated Usability Tests: How to Do Them

    The key to good remote moderated testing is to be thoroughly prepared and organized. Follow these 7 steps to ensure your study’s success.

  • Remote Moderated Usability Tests: Why to Do Them

    Remote unmoderated usability testing is so fast and easy that some teams make it their only evaluation method. But don’t shy away from its more robust alternative, the remote moderated usability test, which can give you more information and is also inexpensive.

  • Usability Testing 101

    UX researchers use this popular observational methodology to uncover problems and opportunities in designs.

  • Unmoderated User Tests: How and Why to Do Them

    The 6 steps for running unmoderated usability testing are: define study goals, select testing software, write task descriptions, pilot the test, recruit participants, and analyze the results.

  • Tools for Unmoderated Usability Testing

    Many platforms for unmoderated usability testing have similar features; to choose the best tool for your needs, focus on the type of data that you need to collect for your goals.

  • Setup of an Eyetracking Study

    If you’re planning on running your own eyetracking study, pay attention to equipment, supplies, and placement to ensure high quality data.

  • How to use Screening Questions to Select the Right Participants for User Research

    To recruit appropriate UX research participants, assess people’s characteristics without giving away the purpose of the study.