Usability Testing

In this tutorial, we are going to study Usability Testing. Usability testing is a type of non-functional software testing which focuses on testing the usability of the product. We have briefly discussed usability testing in the Non-Functional Testing tutorial, and there we got some idea of what exactly Usability testing is.

Here, we will cover terms and information related to usability testing, such as usability testing, the objective of usability testing, the process and methods of usability testing, usability testing tools, the advantages and disadvantages of usability testing, and more.

Let’s begin with what usability testing is.

What is Usability Testing?

Usability testing is a type of non-functional testing which mainly focuses on testing the software’s usability for its clients and users. In other words, it is done from the user’s perspective to examine and ensures the system is user-friendly and easily usable. It is a practice of testing the system’s design and determining how easy it is to use and operate. It helps a user to test the application's usability in various ways like testing the look and feel of the software, the application should be easy to use and understand, and the GUI of the application should be user-friendly. It also helps us to discover and improve the software's design as per client and end-user feedback.

Usability testing is essential to perform on software under test as the goal of usability testing is to identify and evaluate the usability and accessibility-related issues in the software. It is suggested to do usability testing in the early stages, i.e., the Design and Development stage of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), because the cost of bug detection and fixing is less than in later stages. Usability testing is also known as User Experience testing (UX). It is usually conducted during System and Acceptance testing levels of software testing. There are mainly two techniques used to perform usability testing, i.e., Laboratory Usability testing and Remote Usability testing.

In software testing, we have one subset of usability testing, which is known as Accessibility testing. It is mainly used for validating the accessibility of the product for all kinds of users, such as ordinary users and physically challenged users. It checks whether the system is working uniformly for both types of users. We will cover accessibility testing deeply in the following tutorial on accessibility testing.

Need for Usability Testing

Usability testing helps validate the design and aesthetics of a system. It determines how the system looks and works, and it ensures that the look and feel of the system are according to the users. The objective of usability testing is to detect issues and problems related to the usability and accessibility of the system as early as possible. It mainly starts in the designing and development phase of SDLC to prevent the system from usability failures and provide a great user experience for the end users.

The following are the reasons for the need for usability testing:

• To build an interactive and quality product regarding the system’s usability.
• To determine the exact purpose of the system and how close it is to its purpose.
• To identify and fix issues and defects related to usability, such as user-friendliness, look and feel, and GUI of the system, as early as possible.
• Examine and enhance the system's design and architecture to avoid issues and system failures in later stages.
• To make clients and users comfortable with the system keeping some parameters in mind, such as navigation, content, design, and layout should be simple, usable, and easy to understand.

Let’s understand the need for usability testing with the help of an example:

Suppose an organization has developed a website for a restaurant where a user can select food items and place an order for home delivery. The website was functionally tested; however, usability testing still needs to be done. The website is deployed into production. While using the website, a user found a couple of usability issues due to which he could not place the order and provided negative feedback for the website. The problems were as mentioned below:

1. The UI and layout of the website could have been more user-friendly.
2. While adding items to the cart, the "Item's Name" and "Quantity" textboxes overlap.
3. Poor visibility of the buttons and icons of the website.

Due to a lack of proper testing, the website was unsuccessful in the real world. Therefore, to validate the proper functioning, efficiency, effectiveness, and customer satisfaction of the application/software, it is crucial to perform usability testing to deliver a quality product with no errors and defects. It helps in enhancing the product consistently to build more user-friendly systems.

Parameters of Usability Testing

As discussed above, usability testing tests the user-friendliness and ease of the system or product being developed. To deliver a good product and services to the targeted audience, we must cover some crucial parameters under usability testing. These parameters help us to enhance the productivity and quality of the product.

Following are the parameters/ attributes covered under usability testing:

• Efficiency – The first parameter covered under usability testing is efficiency. It specifies the ability of the system to handle the response time, capacity, power, variations, quantity, etc. Here, efficiency concentrates on the uniformity in navigation, layout, and format of screens/ pages of the application and websites. It checks the users who are familiar with the product and should be able to cope with the product and its issues.
• Memorability – Another parameter covered in usability testing is memorability. It determines how memorable the system is, e.g., after using the product, how many users can memorize or recall its operations. Memorability can be either good or bad based on the product’s productivity. A good or beneficial memorability is when we can use and operate the system after a while without taking anybody’s help. On the contrary, bad or non-beneficial memorability is when we cannot use or execute a simple task on the system after a while. A system must have reasonable memorability constraints.
• Satisfaction – Another parameter covered in usability testing is satisfaction. It determines the ability of a system to satisfy its users in all aspects. A system is said to be satisfied when its users can easily use it without any discrepancies. If a system is not meeting the user's requirements, the user must provide feedback to improve the satisfaction score.
• Accuracy – Another parameter covered in usability testing is accuracy. It specifies that there should not be any irrelevant or incorrect data and information in the system, and the system should only provide accurate information to its users. Usability testing also tests the accuracy in terms of broken or unused links present in the system. A system is said to be accurate when the system contains valid data, and all links should be connected correctly.
• Effectiveness – Another parameter covered in usability testing is effectiveness. It specifies the system's effectiveness, i.e., it should be easy to understand, use, learn, etc. It usually checks whether the system is adequate for the user or not. A system is said to be effective when its users can discover and operate it quickly and the system is building an impact on its users.
• User-friendliness – Another parameter covered in usability testing is user-friendliness. It specifies the system's user-friendliness, i.e., it should be self-exploratory and efficient enough for its users. A system should offer ease of use to its users and should not require any training for customers to operate it. In some cases, where users are new to the technology and need help understanding the product, an overview of the system must be provided to the clients and users.
• Error handling – Another parameter covered in usability testing is error handling. It specifies the user should be able enough to tolerate sudden errors and issues that occur in the system. In other words, it determines how a user deals when encountering a problem while operating the application. The testing team will acknowledge the user's request and start fixing the bug at the earliest to accomplish their tasks.

Types of Usability Testing

Usability testing is further divided into different types of testing, which are mentioned below:

• Moderated Testing – Moderated testing means a test which is moderated by someone. In other words, a test performed in-person or remotely by a trained researcher or expert is known as moderated testing. The researcher is the moderator of the tests and introduces the product and tests to the participants, asks follow-up queries, respond to their questions, and more. It helps in enhancing the testing results as it allows direct communication between the moderator of the test and participants and produces in-depth results. The objective of moderated testing is to identify the reason behind user behaviour concerning the product. Moderated tests are usually expensive to conduct as it requires a professional expert, moderated lab, etc.
• Unmoderated Testing – Unmoderated testing is the opposite of moderated testing. It is a type of usability testing performed without the supervision of a trained researcher or expert. Like moderated testing, it can also be done in person (the participants are present in the testing labs) and remotely (participants are present at their homes). However, it is usually done remotely. It doesn’t provide an in-depth testing result like moderated testing but comes with superficial outcomes as there is no moderator. Therefore, no communication is established with the participants and which results in no follow-up questions and responses to their queries, and participants have to complete their tasks independently. The objective of unmoderated testing is to observe and validate the specific question or behaviour and usage patterns regarding the product. It is less expensive compared to moderated testing because we don’t need a professional expert or moderator here to run the tests.
• Remote Testing – It is a type of usability testing conducted remotely over the internet or phone. In remote testing, the participants are present at their homes, offices, or any specific places and perform testing tasks through the internet and phone. The vendors or test conductors will record the participants' screens while interacting with the product to capture their experience and behaviour with the product. It can be done with or without the supervision of an expert. Therefore it can be moderated and unmoderated. Remote testing allows us to conduct testing over a large number of people in various areas with the help of the internet and services. However, it doesn’t support in-depth participant reasoning. Remote testing is further classified into two types of remote usability testing, i.e., Synchronous Remote Usability testing and Asynchronous Remote Usability testing.
• In-person Testing – It is a type of usability testing conducted in person. In-person testing is conducted physically in the presence of a moderator or supervisor. The participants are present in a testing lab and perform live testing in front of the UX researcher. It can be performed only as moderated testing. It allows the moderator to observe and note the body language, verbal and non-verbal cues, emotional responses, gestures, and challenges while accessing the product. A participant can interact with the moderator/ UX designer while facing challenges with the product. The only drawback of in-person testing is that it is time consuming and expensive as it requires a specific location to set up the lab, recruit participants, finalize and schedule the tests, etc.
• Explorative Testing – It is a type of usability testing, which is also known as Formative testing. It is mainly conducted to obtain open-ended views from the users/ participants. In explorative usability testing, the participants are requested to provide ideas and opinions, brainstorm, and freely express their emotional thoughts and concepts about the product being developed. The information is collected and testing is usually performed in the early stages of the product development cycle. It helps the researchers and developers to understand the methodologies, concepts, and design of the product and fill the gaps present in the system. It also helps in identifying new ideas and features which directly benefit the product.
• Comparative Testing – Another type of usability testing is comparative usability testing which allows a user or participant to compare and select the best solution for the product. It is best suited for comparing two or more different solutions and materials. It helps the designers and developers to work and implement the best and most successful option selected by the users/ participants from the various available options. Items and elements can be extracted through comparative testing are efficiency, satisfaction, design elements, customer satisfaction, and more.
• Assessment Testing – Another type of usability testing is assessment usability testing. As the name suggests, assessment testing is mainly performed to assess the usability and functionality of the product as per the user’s feedback. With the help of assessment testing, we observe user behaviour and satisfaction regarding the product, and it checks the user-friendliness and ease of use of the system being developed.

Usability Testing Techniques and Methods

To perform usability testing efficiently, we have various testing methods and techniques in software testing. Usability testing methods are used with multiple types of usability testing and combinations. To start with usability testing, we must select a particular testing method and technique to test the product. Before choosing a unique testing technique, we must research and understand the user requirements, targeted audience, and estimated time, resources, and money needed to proceed with testing.

Below mentioned are the different methods and techniques used for usability testing:

• Lab Usability Testing or Laboratory Testing
• Guerilla or Hallway Testing
• A/B Testing
• Card Sorting
• Session Recording
• Contextual Inquiry

Laboratory or Lab Usability Testing

The lab Usability testing method is mainly used for Moderated and In-person testing. It is usually performed in the presence of a moderator or trained expert in special usability testing labs. The users or participants are asked to execute/complete the assigned testing tasks on computers and mobile devices placed by the moderator. Sometimes, the stakeholders also observe the proceedings and note down all the observations, behaviour, and interaction of users with the system. It is an in-depth approach to testing which enables us to gather comprehensive and qualitative information about the product. The main advantage of laboratory testing is that it provides a controlled environment for testing, such as all testing sessions being executed under a standardized condition. Along with the benefit, there is one major drawback of laboratory testing, i.e., it is costly to use as a single testing session includes only 8-12 participants and a minimal number of populations.

Guerilla Testing or Hallway Testing

Guerilla or Hallway testing is the simplest method of usability testing. In guerilla testing, test subjects or participants are randomly chosen from public places such as shopping malls, coffee shops, airports, and other public places. In other words, a person from the testing team would go to a public place and ask some random people to perform quick usability testing tasks on the prototype. They perform tests in exchange for small gifts such as coffee or gift cards. This type of testing allows us to gather personal views and emotional thoughts, which are more precise and reliable for product enhancement as it covers a wide range of people who are not familiar with the product. It works best in the early stages of product development, and also it is a cost-effective testing approach compared to other usability testing methods.

A/B Testing

Another usability testing technique is A/B testing which is mainly used for the critical comparison of two versions of a website or application against each other to determine the most effective version. In simple words, it refers to a controlled experimentation process which involves two or more variants of an application or website being presented to various visitors/test subjects simultaneously to identify which variant is better and has the maximum impact. In A/B testing, ‘A’ refers to "control", i.e., the initial test variable, whereas ‘B’ refers to “variation", i.e., a new variant of the initial test variable. It is also known as split or bucket testing.

Card Sorting

Another usability testing method is Card Sorting which determines how the participants/ users expect the navigation of an application or website. In simple words, card sorting is a simple and efficient method used for prioritizing features and content of the user interface of an application or website. In card sorting, the UX/UI designers place their context (content and features) on the card notes and participants are allowed to organize cards into categories, topics, and groups as per their understanding and logic. Once the card sorting is done by the participants, the moderator/ researcher will ask them to explain the reason for sorting the cards. It is beneficial for both new and existing websites to get user feedback about the navigational structure of the website, which also helps the UX/UI designers and researchers to meet and deliver the structure as per the user's requirements.

Session Recording

Another usability testing technique is Session Recording which is mainly used for recording the actions and interactions of real users with the website, application, or software. It is a critical way to understand the problems participants or users face while performing some actions such as movement, mouse click, scrolling, tab switching, U-turn (going back to the previous page), etc., on the system. It also helps to examine and differentiate the most exciting and non-interesting features of the website/application according to the users. For recording a session, we need some special tools for that.

Contextual Inquiry

A method of usability testing that helps the team to collect data and information about the user experience from real users and participants. Instead of a usability testing task, it is more like an interview or observation task for the product team. The team asks a set of questions to the users about their experience of using the product. Afterwards, they critically observe the users and ask the same set of questions when they are working in their environment. This method is beneficial in gathering intense information about the users, such as their workspaces, habits, personal preferences, and more.

Usability Testing Process

Like other testing types, Usability testing also follows a testing process. There are mainly six phases or stages of the usability testing process which are followed by the system when usability testing is performed, as shown below:

1. Test Planning
2. Recruiting Team
3. Test Execution Phase
4. Test Result Documentation
5. Data Analysis
6. Reporting

Test Planning

This is the first phase of usability testing, in which the testing team creates a test plan and start collecting the required items for it. Test planning is crucial in the testing process as it identifies the scope, risk, test strategy, and other testing items. The primary purpose of creating a test plan is to document what we are going to do, how we are going to conduct the test, what metrics we are going to find, the number of participants we are going to test, what scenarios we will use, etc. Testers have to thoroughly examine the product and determine the goals of usability testing in the test plan document. The Test Plan document will be the deliverable of the test planning stage.

Recruiting Team

The next step of the usability testing process is Team Recruitment. Once the test planning is completed, we will start recruiting the team for usability testing as per the requirement. Testers will be recruited based on the needs and profiles matching the desired professional experience and demographics of the representative. In this phase, we also hire the participants who will be used for usability testing. There are different types of participants we can use for testing, such as guerilla testing (random people- no need to hire them), testing using existing users and freelancers, recruiting through external firms and agencies, etc. The number of participants you need is based on several case studies. As per studies, five participants can find almost as many core usability problems (85%) in the product.

Test Execution Phase

After recruiting testers and participants for the testing, we'll move to the next phase, i.e., the Test Execution phase. In this phase, the actual test execution is performed. Before executing the tests, we must prepare test scenarios and cases based on the user requirements. Therefore, testers will prepare test cases after analyzing the requirements and specifications. Once the test cases are ready, the test execution will start. The participants are asked to interact, execute, and complete the assigned testing tasks/ test cases to determine whether the system is working fine or not. If they find any issues or bugs while testing, they should be recorded correctly.

Test Result Documentation

After completing the test execution phase, we will move to the Test Result Documentation phase. In this phase, the test execution result is documented in reports for further analysis. The document is a detailed report of each test case result with all defects (if any) and observations. The test result document is the deliverable of this phase/step.

Data Analysis

After preparing the test results, we will move to the Data Analysis phase of the usability testing process. In this phase, the test results are examined and analyzed thoroughly, along with the feedback and response of the participants and users. Interpreting results will help to enhance the product, future deliverables, and overall testing process.

Reporting

This is the last phase/ step of the usability testing process. In this phase, we will combine all the test results and reports to share them will the development team, business analysts, clients, and various stakeholders. It is an easy method to compare each data point for a target and represent this as one single metric based on the percentage of users who achieved this goal.

Usability Testing Tools

The following are the most commonly used usability testing tools available in the market:

• CrazyEgg – It is a click-based usability testing tool with four main features Heatmap, Scroll map, Overlay, and Confetti which creates a better user experience. Heatmap records and shows the areas where each visitor/user has clicked on the webpage, and the Scroll map also shows how far down each user or visitor scrolls a webpage. Overlay helps break down the number of clicks on each page and elements on the page. Confetti provides a detailed report of terms used by a user while searching on a webpage. It offers an easy-to-use UI and allows us to study and understand the likes and dislikes of users about websites and mobile applications. It analyzes the interaction between the user and the application and works on the feedback provided by the users. It is a commercial tool which comes with 30 days free trial period.
• Userfeel – Another usability testing tool is Userfeel which provides recorded videos of all end users sharing their feedback after using the product, application, or website in the real environment. It is designed and developed by usability researchers for performing remote usability testing. On Userfeel, a tester can define a list of tests to be completed on the application under test and the targeted audience. After a specific time, the recorded videos will be available on the Userfeel platform, and testers can use those feedback to improve the product. Other features of Userfeel are that it offers multilingual testing in 40 + languages, voice-over commentary, screen recordings, usability scores and more. Userfeel is an easy-to-use, quick and affordable testing tool.
• UserZoom – It is one of the most commonly used usability testing tools with excellent customer support. It is also famous for its all-in-one feature and intuitive tool. It is a user-experience research system which provides a dedicated moderated and unmoderated website testing platform with interview and recruiting services and automated reporting. It comes up with an inbuilt UserZoom study template for those users who finds difficulty in operating the tool. Some of the other features UserZoom provides our data privacy and security, training sessions by experts, unlimited participants, and analytics features such as benchmarking, surveys, card testing, etc. The only drawback of UserZoom is the cost, and it is costly in comparison to other usability testing tools.
• Usabilla – It is a usability testing tool developed by Usabilla B.V., which is now a part of the GetFeedBack platform. It is mainly used for unmoderated remote testing and provides end-to-end solutions for web applications. It is an easy-to-use tool with a clean and straightforward UI. It provides a tracking feature for the user's mouse click along with the quantitative and qualitative data. We can download data in CSV, PDF, XML, and TEXT format from Usabilla. Other features of usabilla are knowledge management, action management, customer segmentation, text and trend analysis, and more.
• TryMyUI – Another usability testing tool is TryMyUI which provides affordable remote testing for its users. Like Userfeel, it also provides the feature of recording videos and sessions of its users using and completing the list of tests created by a tester. The key features of TryMyUI are collaborative analysis, written surveys, custom screening and prototype testing. Other than that, most elements are similar to other testing tools, such as cross-platform services, impression testing, demographic curation, advanced filtering, and more. The most significant setbacks of TryMyUI are limited test availability and the number of participants allowed to use it.
• Hotjar – Another usability testing tool is Hotjar. Along with usability testing, it is a user tracking tool which measures and tracks the behaviour of the users and the approach they are using to navigate through a website. The key features of Hotjar are heatmaps recording, conversion funnel analytics, session recordings, and feedback collection from feedback surveys and forms. This tool is mainly used by digital marketers, analysts, product marketers, web developers, and UX designers. It is a commercial tool with different plans and free trials.
• Qualaroo – It is one of the best and most popular cloud-based usability testing platforms, which is used to build a great user experience on the product. It provides an inbuilt innovative feedback survey feature which helps us to ask valid questions to the right people at the correct time. Qualaroo is primarily famous for its prototype testing, which allows us to collect pre-usability and post-usability testing insights into the product's design, such as websites, software, and mobile applications. Some of the other features of Qualaroo are a vast question library, in-build UI survey templates, survey triggers, etc.
• Optimizely – It is a popular A/B testing tool used for usability testing. It allows users to keep track of the conversions and visits the user’s previous tests for recalling and understanding the actual growth of the product. Optimizely is a user-friendly and web optimization platform which provides quick and easy editing of the colours, images, tests of websites and applications. It also supports cross-browser testing, website personalization, mobile website testing, multivariate testing, geotargeting visitor segmentation, and toggle functionality.
• Userlytics – Another popular usability testing tool is Userlytics which is mainly used for remote usability testing. Like Userfeel, it also provides feedback from actual and end-users for the application, website, software, or prototype. It offers detailed filtering of tests to segregate user demos for each study. It also provides test metrics such as SUS, NPS, SUPR-Q, and time on task and allows us to record the interaction between the user and application/ software. It provides features like picture-in-picture recording, card sorting, hyperlinked annotations, moderated UX testing, refined skip logic, data virtualization, and more.
• Optimal Workshop – Another usability testing tool is Optimal Workshop which is mainly used for Information Architecture (IA) tests. It is used by researchers and developers to identify and test how users find the data and information they are searching for. One of the advantages of Optimal Workshop is its incredible speed. It comes up with the features and functionalities such as demographic filters, segmentations, surveys, card sorting, and more. It also offers a service of recruiting participants on the platform to study and test. It supports multilingual testing in over 80 languages.

Difference between Usability Testing and User Acceptance Testing

Usability Testing – A type of non-functional testing that focuses on testing the usability and behaviour of the product under test for its end users is known as Usability testing. It usually validates the user-friendliness of the systems from the client's and user's perspectives. It specifies how the system behaves while operating and ensures the users can use the product and services without any discrepancies.

User Acceptance Testing – A type of functional testing that focuses on testing the software and applications by clients, customers, or end-users is known as User Acceptance testing. It is performed to ensure that the software is fully functional and can achieve the goal of meeting the user's requirements by testing the end-to-end workflow of the application. It specifies what the system is doing based on the user’s feedback.

Sometimes, people might need clarification on usability testing and user acceptance testing. However, they are slightly different from each other in terms of functionality.

Following are the differences between usability and user acceptance testing:

Attribute	Usability Testing	User Acceptance Testing
Definition	It tests the system's usability, i.e., whether it is usable enough for all its users and clients.	It validates the system based on the users’ requirements or feedback.
Objective	It determines whether the targeted group or users can use the product.	It provides the users with the type of software/product required.
Testing methods and types	Usability testing uses different types of methods to perform testing, such as: Guerilla testing Lab Usability testing Unmoderated remote usability testing	User acceptance testing is divided into different types of testing, such as: Alpha & Beta Testing Contract Acceptance Testing Regulation Acceptance Testing Operational Acceptance Testing Black Box Testing

Difference between Usability Testing and GUI (Graphical User Interface) Testing

Usability Testing – A type of non-functional testing that focuses on testing the usability and behaviour of the product under test for its end users is known as Usability testing. The objective of usability testing is to validate the user-friendliness of the systems from the client's and user's perspectives. It is used to evaluate the complete feasibility of the software, such as efficiency, accuracy, customer satisfaction, etc.

GUI Testing – A type of functional testing that focuses on testing the GUI of the application/ software is known as GUI testing. GUI (Graphical User Interface) of the application is used to establish communication between the application and users. The primary goal of GUI testing is to validate the basic functionality, such as layout, buttons, icons, font, font size, content, hyperlinks, etc., of the system.

Following are the differences between usability and GUI testing:

Attribute	Usability Testing	GUI Testing
Definition	It is used to test the user-friendliness, ease of use, accessibility, and accuracy of the product from the end user's perspective.	It is used to test the functional parameters and design of the system to meet the user’s requirements.
Type	It is a type of non-functional testing.	It is a type of functional testing.
Test	It focuses on enhancing the quality and user-friendliness of the product.	It focuses on improving the look and feel of the product.
Objective	It evaluates the easiness of use of the developed system for its users.	It evaluates the appearance of the system on the demand of its users.
Scope	The scope of usability testing is for the overall application, i.e., the working of the entire application is being tested.	The scope of GUI testing is limited to the front-end interface of the application only.
Importance	Usability testing is essential compared to GUI testing as it emphasizes user comfort.	GUI testing is less important than usability testing because, most of the time, it focuses on minor or small issues of GUI.
Perspective	Usability testing is carried out from a non-technical user’s perspective.	GUI testing is carried out from a technical user’s perspective.
Platform dependency	Usability testing is carried out from a system's primary to challenging levels to ensure uniformity is maintained between all different levels.	GUI testing is platform independent
Flow of system	Through usability testing, the flow between different connecting modules gets tested.	In GUI testing, the flow remains untouched as it focuses on testing the product's look.
Coverage	It covers the design, ability and features of a system to satisfy its users and clients in all aspects.	GUI testing covers the appearance and look and feel of the product.
Example	Examples of usability testing are testing the scrollbar and text input boxes of the application to see whether the bar is navigating correctly and whether the text boxes are allowing the users to provide inputs.	Examples of GUI testing are testing the font size, background colours, dialogue box, and icons of the interface of an application.

Advantages of Usability Testing

The following are the advantages of usability testing:

• One of the significant advantages of usability testing is that it involves the users of the system to provide ideas and feedback about the system.
• It helps in validating the usability-related aspects of the system accurately.
• With the help of usability testing, product quality and user satisfaction continuously improve in every iteration.
• It helps us to thoroughly understand the user requirements and avoid items which frustrate and irritates the users.
• It helps in identifying hidden issues (both major and minor) present in the system, which affects the system's usability and user experience.  
• It helps in assisting and fixing all the defects which a user might face while using the product before its deployment.
• It ensures that the system's functionality matches the client's or user’s expectations with no flaws present in the system.
• It also ensures the system is available, convenient, and easy for all users.

Disadvantages of Usability Testing

The following are the disadvantages of usability testing:

• One of the significant drawbacks of usability testing is that it requires a lot of time, cost and resources to set up the testing environment.
• Sometimes it is challenging to find skilled usability testing professionals to perform it efficiently as it requires highly skilled testers.
• Usability testing can be costly in comparison to another testing as it has a broad scope and can be extended to a longer period which results in a high budget for testing.
• Usability testing is mainly done manually, which makes it more tedious to perform and takes a lot of time to test. Testers need to put more effort into analyzing and testing the data.
• Usability testing is mainly done for a specific group of audiences. E.g., an application is developed for kinder garden kids from 2-5 years of age. It is challenging to find users from that age group for testing and feedback. Therefore, sometimes usability testing becomes a tedious task to perform.