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In the end, the key deliverable from your usability tests should be a set of recommendations you deliver to the people responsible for the website. They should be based on your test results as well as personal observation.
Things to Consider
- How will you review the tests after they have been completed? Do you have recordings, notes, or other information you can refer to?
- How can you best report on the results of each test? Do you have qualitative analysis to explain what happened and how problems arose?
- Are you able to provide recommendations for each problem you've found? Which ones have clear solutions? Which ones are more troublesome? Is more testing needed?
- Who is ultimately responsible for making the changes you suggest? Have you given them enough information to compel them to act?
- When will you conduct testing again, and what might you test?
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Interpreting tests results in some cases will be very easy.
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Simple observation can provide many clues about what website changes should be made.
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Also, many users will tell you directly that something is wrong, bad,
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it's not working, or that they don't like something.
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These comments often relate to usability issues but it is important to separate facts from opinion.
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When providing results, consider the experience each user had.
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Did they successfully accomplished each task,
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and in each case, where they satisfied with the results?
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It's very possible for a user to eventually find what they were looking for after a long period of time.
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This doesn't necessarily mean the website is in good shape.
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Other times, tests just don't yield clear results.
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If you're unsure what some of your data means,
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make a note of it so you can review it later and then move on.
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When all is said and done, the key deliverable from your test should be
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a set of recommendations you deliver to the people responsible for your website.
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It should be a clear list of directives based on your research,
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the test you conducted, and personal observation.
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The data you collect will help stir you in certain directions
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when generating recommendations for improvement.
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For instance, if every test user had trouble finding our return policy
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on the Shirts 4 Mike's site, there must be a problem.
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Sometimes the fix is obvious like adding a link in an expected location but not always.
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More testing can often reveal the best way to rule out different areas
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and decide upon the best solution.
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Your recommendations don't have to be produced in the form of one long check list.
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And in fact, a list like that can be misleading.
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You should be able to provide background on each item and rank them in order of importance.
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Fixing typos on a page isn't as mission critical as fixing a shopping cart that crashes every time.
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Therefore, you should organize these proposed fixes into a format that make sense
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and that's easy to implement especially if you are the one that has to do it.
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Lastly, understand that while findings can show areas for improvement,
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it can also confirm that something is working.
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Neither case knowing something works or doesn't work can be equally important.
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If you can run these tests with three to five people each month or two,
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you'll have plenty of data to keep yourself busy with changes and improvements
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especially if you end up implementing them immediately.
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And if that's the case, you'll have something new to test the following month.
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