Become A UX Testing Expert

UX expert Joshua Garity shares his experience to reveal the questions you need to ask and the procedures you need to follow when it comes to composing effective UX tests

- Joshua Garity

Evaluating the success of user experience strategies in a project requires a deep understanding of why decisions were made and what core goals motivated the project in the first place. Purpose is what provides context to data. Without that context, the data you review is always going to be clouded with your own personal bias and assumptions.

It’s why all of those impressive unauthorised redesigns of websites like Facebook that make the rounds every year mean absolutely nothing. Making something better is often based on opinion. I once worked with a user experience expert – self-proclaimed of course – that would frequently try to guide major decisions with opinions and not quantifiable data: ‘I don’t like using drop-downs in navigation.’ User experience strategy is selfless. It’s not about you or me. It’s not even about the stakeholder in the department asking you to improve something. It’s about the organisation’s clients. The customers that spend their hard-earned money on the company’s products or services.

User experience is about understanding their needs and assessing the best way to accomplish those goals with the resources currently available. You will never have enough time, enough budget or enough teammates with just the right experience to do something the way you may want to.

So, how do we start this journey? Good. We’re glad you asked.

Determine purpose of tests

One of the most difficult aspects of effectively testing anything is understanding the purpose behind the request. Why are you currently being asked to test anything at all? In many cases the organisation only recently began to find value in user experience, likely driven by a past failure, but doesn’t know where to begin.