The most frequent UX mistakes. Part 1 — Usability Testing

This is the first part of three, about about the mistakes you, your team, or your organization most likely does in developing digital products or services.

No testing = guessing

The number one is usability testing. Or the lack of it.

Because there is a big chance that you will try the most expensive way to test your idea, which is building production-quality software.

Many do it like this, you or your org is not alone — with zero examination of whether your idea works outside of your offices. Whether your users actually know how to use your “thing”.

And yet it is enough to draw a wireframe of your next project on a paper or tablet, head out to the nearest shopping mall and ask shoppers whether they could spare a few minutes going through a workflow or two, thinking out loud while doing it.

To be more specific, testing the usability of a design by talking to 4–5 target customers, for 40–50min each, with a clickable prototype in hand, is enough to uncover 80% of issues. Really.

Paradox: UX is expensive — bad design costs everything

Why are you skipping usability testing?

The answer we hear the most is that UX is expensive. That is true, but the bad design will cost you everything.

The price of fixing an error after development is easily 100x that of fixing it before development.

Such a paradox — why would you risk developing something people do not understand?

Maybe you are so rich that you can afford the luxury of building products or services based on guesses.

The business value of UX and where to start

Implementing usability testing and prototyping brings business value because you find out what your idea is missing — or how people would use it — before building a solution.

Thus saving time and money.

Well-implemented UX based on testing with your users can reduce overall development time by 33–50% by improving the decision-making process and task prioritization.

Moreover, the amount of time spent on rework is 50%.

Great companies talk to customers very often

If you want to build a great product, you need to have a deep understanding of your customers.

It’s something great companies do to build great products — and many more avoid.

Don’t you want to start?

Let’s talk, we can help

Usability testing is the best start for introducing UX in organizations with absent or limited UX maturity.

The best eye opener for the business value of UX.

We know because we help companies like yours integrate users into your work.

If you want to learn more about how to implement UX or just start a conversation, drop us a message at info-sk@ableneo.com — we will be happy to listen, talk and help.

How we listen, talk, and help

We assess UX and product design maturity and suggest low effort/big impact improvements, even help with them, as the already mentioned testing.

We also help with growing your UX maturity or product IQ — we know how to help ambassadors and teams with strategy, process, but also workforce or communication.

The most frequent UX mistakes. Part 1 — Usability Testing was originally published in ableneo Process on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.