#Testing Archives

Importance of Usability Testing

Posted on 12/01/202121/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

When Lyla was asked if she could interview an author on her colleague’s behalf, she jumped at the opportunity. Lyla was interning with an uptown magazine for a role that deemed her ‘unfit’ for any important tasks such as interviewing a popular author. Getting an opportunity to talk to her favorite author was like a jackpot. She thought she is finally gripping onto a childhood dream. She thought she finally can brag about meeting Paula Hawkins. She wanted to be careful about not screwing this golden opportunity, so she double-checked everything on her list.
Notepad, check. Pen, check. Camera, check. Questions, check. Recorder, check! Oh wait! I have to check for a new update, just in case I am outdated.

She updated her app quickly and reached the coffee shop before time. She was excited, she was anxious. It’s an easy-peasy task, you just have to ask questions, record them and pour it out later– she kept repeating this in her mind.
But the moment Paula Hawkins walked in, she started feeling the breathlessness. Part excited, part nervous, she could feel her palms sweating. After exchanging some pleasantries they kicked off with the interview.

“Shall we start?”
“Yes, of course. Let me just..umm… Start this thing”
*she clicked on the record button and started talking, simultaneously taking notes.*

Unaware of what was happening after she clicked on that little red button, she went on with the interview, taking down notes as per her whims. Ignorant of the new updated feature — which now needed ‘long press and hold to start recording’, she finished the interview, smiling and pleased with herself. But as she looked down, in order to ‘STOP’ the recorder, she lost the fanatic feel of doing a good job!

A little hover over the button said “long press and hold to start recording” which was an obvious slip.
Game over. She probably lost her mind or her job. Or both. But that’s none of our concern. Right? She should have been more attentive.

Lyla is a fake person. She did not meet Paula Hawkins ever. But the incident is real. Only, it happened with an acquaintance and I figured out it wouldn’t be fair to name her. This incident forced me to shine some light on the importance of usability testing and why it’s more important to pay attention to user’s behavior while they interact with the product.

They say, never talk to your users, they hardly know what they want. But they missed out on the summary-

“To design the best UX, pay attention to what users do, not what they say. Self-reported claims are unreliable, as are user speculations about future behavior. Users do not know what they want.”

Usability testing- What is it?

Usability testing is like black-box testing of an application to ascertain if the product built is convenient to use and easy to learn.

These are methods of testing and observing the behavior of the users to find out what works and what doesn’t work. Users are given specific tasks to complete and when they are at work, observers watch their body language, facial expressions, emotions and encourage them to “think aloud” i.e. speak up whatever comes to their mind while using the product. Doing this exercise we can get qualitative and quantitative data and figure out usability issues with a product.

So, why usability testing is important?

Doing usability testing the right way, at right time with the right set of people reduces the risk of building the wrong product; thereby saving time, money and other precious resources. In other words, if done at an early stage when the product is at paper prototyping stage, it finds the problems when they are easy and cheap to fix. And when done on a product which has attained maturity it helps to understand user’s success rate and time spent to complete a task. There are hundreds and thousands of cases when usability testing proved to be a good exercise in terms of ROI.

For example, a slight tweak in design suggested by usability testing for Mac’s UI, the company got 90% fewer support calls.

Need more clarity about why usability testing is a good idea? Here you go-
#1. To check if product meet user’s expectations
#2. Matches business decisions to real-world use
#3. Removes flaws in the product
#4. Allows you to see how successful users are with their tasks
#5. Useful for getting user reactions and feedback about the product

What are the types of data that we can get as a result of our analysis?

Two types of data results received are — quantitative and qualitative. Usability testing is largely a qualitative research technique and is not driven by statistics like surveys where lots of people participate. Usability testing is done using a small set of people, usually five to seven.

Qualitative methods are very useful to test the stress response of the users like their body language, movement of hands, expressions on the face and squinting eyes especially doing a test on a mobile device.

The metrics we get after usability testing can be quantitative as well. For example, time spent on doing a task, success and failure rates and also the efforts, like how many clicks a user needs in order to complete a task.

Is there a need to record all the metrics obtained from a usability testing?

Yes, keeping a record of the metrics is very important. Why? Because usability testing is not just for designers to understand how to make better designs but it is also an important tool to influence the rest of the stakeholders like clients, their sales/support team, project managers, developers, other designers etc.

Every stakeholder involved may have a different point of view for a design decision. Being subjective by nature, design decision often leads to long debates among stakeholders. Most often design decisions are influenced by a person who holds the highest position among fellow stakeholder or has superior oratory skills.

In short, metrics help us in iterating and validating design concepts. It gives objectivity to design debates and it helps in taking fact-based design decisions.

At what phase of the design process usability testing is recommended?

When it comes to usability testing there are two terms often referred by big names of the UX industry (like Jacob Nielsen) and these terms are Summative Test and Formative Test.

These tests are done at different stages of the design process. They are as explained below:
Formative tests are low-fidelity tests (to gain quick insights)-
#1. During the very initial development phase using paper prototypes
#2. It can be done anywhere and a formal lab is not required
#3. It can be done just between a moderator and a participant

The results from a formative test may include-
#a. Users’ comments in the form of “Thinking Aloud” narrative i.e. their emotions, confusion sources and their reasons for actions.

Summative tests are high fidelity tests (to capture metrics)-
#1. These are carried out at the end of the development stage
#2. At this stage usability of a product is validated
#3. This gives an answer to the question “How usable the product is?”
#4. This gives a comparison against competitor products
#5. Conducted in usability labs or remotely using many tools available where users can do the test using their computers or mobile phones

The results from summative tests may include-
#a. User’s success rate to achieve a goal
#b. The time spent on completing a task

How many users are required to conduct the testing?

“Elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests you can afford”
Jacob Nielsen

“It is widely assumed that 5 participants suffice for usability testing. In this study, 60 users were tested and random sets of 5 or more were sampled from the whole, to demonstrate the risks of using only 5 participants and the benefits of using more. Some of the randomly selected sets of 5 participants found 99% of the problems; other sets found only 55%. With 10 users, the lowest percentage of problems revealed by any one set was increased to 80%, and with 20 users, to 95%.”
Laura Faulkner

Who among them is right?

It depends on what type of test we are doing and where we are doing it. For example, if we are doing a low-fidelity formative testing we can do away with a small sample size. But if we are doing a summative testing we need a bigger sample size. In the type of testing where we are comparing our site to competitor’s website by using an online tool which is cheap and fast, we can use a large sample size. But we should keep in mind that these online tools like UserTesting or Loop11, they don’t capture metrics. It’s us who has to be aware of how all the participants did it.

So how to prepare a test plan?

That is certainly a good question. You have an inquisitive mind, I must say. But don’t you think that will be too much to digest in one bite?
Still, if you are really into it, give these things a thought-
-Decide what areas to concentrate on
-Determine potential usability issues
-Determine what tasks you want to test

Mobile Application Testing- A Step by Step Guide

Posted on 07/01/202018/06/2021 by Anteelo Master

As mobile applications are emerging as the biggest trend in the market today, it is carrying with it plenty of opportunities for everyone- may it be the developers, the app owners or the users. Mobile apps have created a stir in the market, and therefore, the competition in its market is cutthroat. Therefore, just building a functional and aesthetically pleasing app in no longer enough. Developers must ensure that their app is free from any sort of errors, bugs or glitches which might hinder the UX and avert customers from using it. That’s when TESTING comes into the scene.

Quality Assurance is an indispensable piece of the mobile app development lifespan. Unfortunately, many disregard the basic step of this progression. To guarantee the fruitful development of any application, QA must be engaged with all phases of development, from the ideation stage to breaking down prerequisites, drafting test particulars and deploying the completed item. QA is even the way to post-development audits.

Be that as it may, it can regularly be overwhelming to realise where to begin while making your testing procedure. Mainly follow the below-given steps for a consistent methodology of mobile application testing:

1. Strategizing and Preparation

This is the first and foremost step after you are done with your development process. This phase requires you to set up a strategy and draft a work plan to define what success means for your app and what constraints it might face. This is a crucial phase as it sets the trajectory for the rest of the steps. The activities that are carried out in this stage are as follows:

Affinity for different systems
Check and rundown the necessities:
Check Frequency of data-usage
Check Frequency of space-usage
Dissect practical prerequisites
Does the application interface with different applications?
Identify the targeted devices
Is the application testing constrained to front-end? Does it incorporate back-end testing also?
Load Handling
The utility of each feature
Will the app be Native, PWA, or Hybrid?

2. Categorise the type of testing required

It is a compulsory necessity that the application needs to work in all iOS and Android gadgets as the end-users can have a variety of gadgets. To guarantee that the application works in every one of the gadgets, we chose a mix of manual testing, automated testing and testing in cloud simulator. This comprises of practical, ease of use, similarity, execution, or security testing on the objective gadgets. Likewise, figure out what sort of practical prerequisites ought to be tried.

3. Test Case and Script Design

The test case is a succession of steps that assist us in executing a specific test on the application. The test script, too, is something very similar. The only difference between these two is that the term test case is used during manual testing, whereas the term test script is used during automated testing. It is very crucial to draft a test case for each and every feature and functionality that you have provided in your mobile application. In addition to that, some extra test cases must also be included.

4. Setup Appropriate Environment for Testing

A testing environment refers to an arrangement of code as well as devices for the testers or automated scripts to perform test cases. In short, it assists in testing with hardware, software, and system designed. Testbed or test environment is arranged according to the need of the App-Under-Test. On a couple of events, testbed could be the mix of the test environment and the test information it works on. Setting up the correct test environment guarantees successful mobile app testing. Any imperfections in this process can lead to additional expense and time of the customer.

5. Manual and Automated Testing

This progression includes executing manual test cases and mechanised test contents on different gadgets, emulators or test systems. Presently these manual test cases and computerised test contents are run on the key functionalities of the application to guarantee that there are no glitches. Record the flaws recognised in the error management system and follow the work plan as devised in the first step.

6. Beta Testing

Beta testing is a significant piece of the application dispatch process. After engineers test their application (that is a thorough testing process called alpha testing), they push it forward to genuine clients to test it. Now, they have the chance to get large blemishes settled before making the application accessible for the more extensive audience. What will the beta testers do? They reliably utilize the application over a particular timeframe. They report back any bugs or issues, and they give their reviews about the application. This aides application distributors to choose whether or not their application is prepared for their target users. On the off chance that it’s not, they’ll have the opportunity to continue improving before it hits the application stores.

7. Performance Testing

Performance testing is the act of assessing how a framework acts as far as responsiveness and soundness under a specific task are concerned. Performance tests are ordinarily executed to analyse speed, power, unwavering quality, and application size. Performance testing assembles each one of the tests that check an application’s speed, strength, unwavering quality, and right estimating. It looks at a few pointers, for example, a program, page and system reaction times, server inquiry handling time, number of acceptable concurrent clients architected, CPU memory utilization, and number/kind of mistakes which might be experienced when utilizing an application.

8. Security Testing

Make sure that the application is secure by approving SQL injection, information dumps, session seizing, bundle sniffing, SSL, and gate crashers. Typically, mobile apps have generally less gadget memory and power so it is fundamental that applications must deal with it appropriately. Along these lines, the application performance can be tried by modifying the system from 2G, 3G, 4G to broadband and WIFI. Therefore, the responsiveness, adaptability, and strength are tried in performance testing of an application.

9. Device Testing

Device testing includes a lot of exercises from analysing and rectifying errors, content and administrations on genuine handsets. Testing incorporates confirmation and approval of equipment gadgets and programming applications. During this step, the mobile application is tested on various operating systems as well as a variety of devices so as to ensure that the apps work well when it is launched in the market among the end-users identified with the cloud. The primary motive of this phase is to attain decent test coverage relating to various devices, operating systems or versions of OS.

10. Reporting

At last, the QA administrator produces the test synopsis report. This is an administration report which gives subtleties of any significant data revealed by the tests led, incorporates evaluations of the nature of the testing exertion, the nature of the product framework under test and measurements got from occurrence reports. The report additionally records various kinds of testing performed and the completion of the testing. This assists in improving any future test arranging. This final report shows whether the product framework under test is fit for use and has met acceptance criteria characterized by venture partners.

In a mobile app development venture, mistakes can show up in any of the phases of the development cycle, some of them even stay hidden. Mobile application Testing empowers undertakings to assemble applications that are adaptable and accessible over various stages. It’s a procedure to fabricate a mobile application by testing it for its usefulness, ease of use, and consistency. This is possible via both automation as well as manual testing. Mobile applications are getting more and more complicated with time and there is a requirement for a start-to-end testing. Right from whether the app is downloadable easily, works smoothly, and gives the same kind of experience across various devices. Therefore, we hope that this article has given you enough insights into the mobile application testing process and may come handy when you need it.

Tag: #Testing