Sick Design: Testum Erroneous

(Latin: “Wrong Questions”)

You set up a clear user test, with a super simple start and end. Then test a random sample of users, only to find 30% of users successfully completed your flow. So you search through comments of the why only to realize many of the comments are “나는 영어 를 말하지 않는다” Looks like you forgot to constrain your test to English speakers only for your English only app. And you just asked the wrong questions!

COMMON SYMPTOMS: 

• Inaccurate or conflicting data
• Ignored test results
• Data that few on the team have access to or understand

CAUSES: 

• Designers with little experience conducting tests
• Lack of value placed on data
• Testing multiple variables at once

TREATMENTS:

Most designers know that testing is important, but it’s also important to conduct the right kind of test to get useful data. Testing without a clear and measurable objective or metric is a waste of time and resources. It’s also easy to draw the wrong conclusions from faulty or inaccurate test data, especially from asking the wrong questions.

It’s important that your team fully understands what is being tested and why. While it is possible to test several things at once, it makes the most sense to focus on one thing at a time. This  ensures some external factor doesn’t skew the results. 

Try to keep your tests simple and include only one variable. Testing only one interaction or part of a design at a time may lengthen the testing cycle for your app or website, but it will ensure your team knows exactly which parts of your design are working and which are not. 

Once you have enough data, you can expand your test to entire workflows that introduce more components and complexity. 

Get the Data You Need

There are more than a dozen usability tests in Helio that can help you get data on your designs. But let’s get you started with an easy peasy template to test your new prototypes.

When you’ve zeroed in on the interactions that are most successful, you can even test entire workflows through clickable wireframes and prototypes. Best of all? All of the data is neatly formatted into easy to read reports. You can even purchase test results from our global pool of testers and get near instantaneous results!