App usability testing is the key to unlocking the secrets of your product's user experience before you launch it in the app store. With a recent study showing that cell phone users spend 86% of their time on their phones using only apps, it's no wonder why mobile apps are still limited by their relatively small screen size and limited performance capabilities. Research suggests that usability is key to the success of mobile apps, with successful apps being easy to learn, user-friendly, and less time-consuming to complete tasks.

But what if you work hard to create a new app or feature only to find out that users don't like it? Usability testing can help validate your decisions about interface design, navigation, and functionality, and inform future decisions, such as prioritizing new features or bug fixes. This step in the development process is especially important because it helps you identify areas where your product may be falling short.

Understanding User Behavior

Usability testing involves collecting feedback from real users to create a prioritized list of recommended changes to improve their experience with your product. By analyzing how people use your app, usability testing ensures that you release products or updates that real users in your target market can easily navigate and find value in. Some common issues that usability testing can help identify include:

  • Whether people can easily complete tasks (such as finding and performing specific functions)
  • How long it takes to complete certain tasks
  • Bugs or performance issues not found by internal testing
  • Points of confusion about interface functionality
  • The effectiveness of call-to-action phrases

The Benefits of Usability Testing

One of the greatest benefits of laboratory usability testing is the amount of control it provides. With this method, all tests are run under the same standardized conditions, making it particularly useful for comparative testing. However, these tests are typically more expensive and are often based on a small population in a controlled environment, which may not reflect your actual customer base or real-life use cases.

On the other hand, guerrilla testing involves randomly selecting test participants from public places (such as malls, airports, or coffee shops) and asking them to perform a quick usability test in exchange for something like a gift card or coupon. This method is particularly useful because it allows you to test your app with a completely random group of people while also building awareness and interest in your app.

Card Sorting: A Qualitative Research Technique

Card sorting mobile app usability testing is an iterative and qualitative research technique that helps determine the most effective and intuitive way to organize the navigational structure of an app. In card sorting, facilitators ask users to sort virtual cards representing different items or categories in the app navigation into categories that are meaningful to them.

Observational Testing: Finding Problems You May Not Expect

The benefit of observational mobile app usability testing is that it allows you to find problems that you may not expect or that can be easily reproduced using other usability testing methods. It also allows usability testing in the context of a real environment, which makes it very useful for testing the functionality of the app and its interface.

Preparing Test Scenarios

When conducting usability tests, it's essential to prepare test scenarios that are vague enough not to steer testers in a specific direction or give them instructions. For example, the task of testing the design of an e-commerce app would look like this:

  • Searching for a product
  • Sign in
  • Completing a payment
  • Complete checkout

Tip: Avoid interfering with as many tasks as possible – it makes drawing conclusions more difficult. Instead, prioritize tasks according to their importance relative to the initial goal. Assign no more than five tasks per participant.

The key is to keep the tasks as simple and short as possible. However, you can and should provide some background information for these tasks and make them relevant to your product's purpose and functionality.