For growing and maintaining a business, web usability is an essential factor. A poor performance of a website/application can lead to users abandoning it. When the website/application does not match user’s expectation, usability of the website suffers which in turn leads to the declining of the business.

Involving end users in testing could help us in delivering a useful more importantly a user-friendly product. An end user understands perfectly what the system needs to do for them. Usability testing is carried out to improve the performance and usability of the website/application which also helps the businesses to get more leads.

Usability Testing is a type of software testing done from end user’s perspective to determine the user’s ease to use the application/website, the ability of the system to meet its objectives and flexibility in handling controls. It is recommended to carry out this testing in the initial design phase of SDLC so that the problems are identified before they are coded.

A user-friendly design and easy to use user interface help boost user satisfaction. The important factors that affect usability are as follows:

  • User task – The most important thing to be tested is whether the visitors to your site can accomplish their tasks and goals efficiently.
  • Readability – Content is the soul of any website. You must test the site for ease of comprehension, i.e. whether the content is easy to read, understand and legible.
  • Website speed – Faster loading of pages can increase the number of visitors to the site which results in better SEO. Instantaneous website response increases customer satisfaction and leads to higher conversion rates.
  • Site Navigation – Whether a site is user friendly or not is determined by the site navigability. The web pages should be well organised and categorised. The users should be able to access multiple pages as easily as possible.

Accessibility – The website should be tested to ensure that it is accessible to everyone including persons with disabilities

Usability testing is critical component in streamlining the design and development process. It is recommended to carry out the testing once in a week during the design phase. It addresses the following issues:

  • Resolves content gaps
  • Identifies potential errors while accessing the site
  • Identifies broken links
  • Corrects poor design layout

A proper systematic usability testing can help the website/application provide a great user experience.