Usability Testing in 2019

Testing digital products in a world where good user experience is not just expected, but mandatory for success.

From my experience, helping clients understand the value of user testing has been one of the most challenging aspects of working as a UX designer. It takes time, money, and effort to put together groups of testers and have them walk through a series of clickable prototypes or an existing website.

The most difficult part of convincing a client to allow me to conduct user testing is that it requires resource gathering that may be outside of my own personal abilities. With a freelance client, I’m often only able to get access to their user base with their permission as well as their help. Sure, there are workarounds — you could find free testers through social media, for example. Often, usability testing surfaces fundamental issues about a digital product.

Jakob Nielsen, a Danish usability expert I have referenced before, says it best:

“there is value in fine tuning the details in the user interface, but the impact on the user experience is not as great as the impact from the fundamental changes made early in the design.”

Nielsen also recognizes the benefits for clients who choose to employ user testing early and often:

“the benefits from early usability data are at least ten times bigger than the benefits from late usability data; it is 100 times cheaper to make a change before any code has been written than if the same change has…