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How to Succeed at Remote Usability Testing

Publish Date: 18 / 03 / 2022

Usability testing involves getting users to interact with your application or website to evaluate the experience. But what can we do when it’s not possible to get a group of people together in a room to test our products? What if in-person tests are beyond our budget or we are limited for time? Remote usability testing is the process of getting user feedback with participants in their natural environment instead of a lab environment. The testing can be moderated or unmoderated. A facilitator can guide them through the testing process, watching in real-time using digital tools and answering any follow-up questions. Or, participants can be left to perform the test on their own at their own pace, following a pre-written script, with results delivered in the form of recorded videos. 

If you are developing a new application, with remote usability testing, you are able to get feedback from a wider group of people in a cost-efficient way. Of course, it’s vital to get it right, and that means ensuring you recruit enough people, are able to make participants feel comfortable and that they fully understand what is being asked of them. And, of course, using the right platform can make a huge difference too. Manage all that, and you will find that you are able to drastically improve your applications without running into budget and time constraints. 

How to Achieve Design Consistency

Publish Date: 17 / 03 / 2022

Creating a consistent experience is a fundamental element of design. It provides a sense of familiarity, reduces learning time and is the basis of delivering outstanding user experience. A consistent design is an intuitive one. That means that people can transfer their knowledge across different contexts and learn new things without anything standing in their way. And by being intuitive, it is useful and will improve the lives’ of its users, making them more efficient at the task at hand. Ultimately, if you achieve design consistency, your users won’t have to learn how your user interface (UI) works, and that means they can get on with executing the task and achieving their goal.

Being consistent is about replicating the same action or element several times while still delivering on user expectations. To achieve that, there are several areas of your designs that you can focus on. You should consider your language, the voice and tone of your site, as well as the design elements. You should do your research and get to know the mindset of your users so you can deliver on their expectations. And, you should make sure that your UI elements function and look consistent throughout your site. If you can do that, you will make your application simpler and faster to use and altogether more successful.