How did I establish a lab for Usability Testing at my company?
Summary: You don’t need a fancy usability lab to test the usability of your product, but a dedicated usability lab has some advantages over remote testing, so I’ll share my experience setting one up at my company along with some words of wisdom on how to encourage management to support the establishment of a dedicated usability lab.
Now, why do we need a dedicated Usability Lab?
As a UX researcher or designer, if you think there’s a need for user research or you can’t make a design decision without knowing your target users, you typically choose to conduct user research. However, as shown in the above table, remote usability testing is less expensive and time-consuming. However, if your company (team) needs usability testing or UX research and is looking for credible data to make an informed decision about your product, setting up a usability testing lab could be a good option.
In our case, we were working on a product and had a lot of questions from the product owners or designers about usability issues, and the majority of the target audience lived near our office base locations, which encouraged us to think about a sustainable way to conduct all of our usability-related studies, which led to the establishment of a dedicated usability testing room.
What was my strategy?
I’m sure many of you have had disagreements with stakeholders or managers when proposing a new idea or changing a process, but why?
There are a few reasons that I have identified from my previous experience:
A. Money: Every team has a budget that they must adhere to as stakeholders or managers. Any new change or new idea should give them the impression that it will have an impact on their team’s budget.
B. Time: Most of the time, your managers or stakeholders are very occupied with their jobs or some other activities , so throwing an idea around adds to the time pressure.
C. UX Maturity: I wrote an article that describes my strategy and process for gradually improving a team’s or organisation’s UX maturity. Sometimes people are unaware of the importance of the UX process and research, so creating awareness is critical.
D. Confidence: I’ve noticed that many people don’t have a proper strategic vision, plan, or take more ownership, and as a result, stakeholders or managers lack the confidence to take risks.
So for our case, we lacked UX maturity and confidence, That Information gave me the ideas about how should I propose my idea regarding a dedicated usability lab?
I could have simply stated, “Hello, John (my manager), I believe we should establish a usability lab; what do you think?”
“Hello, Udit, that sounds like a good idea; let’s think about it.”
“Thank you, John,” I said.
[After a month]
Me: “Hello, John. Would you like to discuss the Usability Lab? “We haven’t talked in over a month.”
John: “Udit, you are correct.” “I’ll get back to you soon; I’ve been preoccupied with other matters.”
“OK, sure!” I said.
[After two weeks]
Me: “Hello, John. Are you available right now? “Should we discuss this?”
“Yes, but I think we have to hold that topic at this point due to some management issues,” says John.
“Thank you for informing me,” I said.
I am sure this is the generic scenario I illustrated above, but you must understand that each team has its own unique challenges and needs, so understand them thoroughly and try to discuss if there are any issues, and work with them to resolve them, demonstrating that you have a clear vision and how businesses can benefit.
You could click here to read more about the UX maturity plan & strategy.
What challenges I have faced?
Planning for the usability lab is easier said than done. We always hope to have a proper process in place, and the people I work with should understand how important design, user experience, and research are. However, the reality is different. If our colleagues and team members don’t grasp, we push them so hard that we eventually realise they don’t understand why UX design is vital.
Let’s take a step back and put ourselves in their place. Assume Lena is one of the developers you are working with.
If she says, “This file has 85% code coverage, and I think we should refactor our code,” do you think the majority of the designers and UX researchers will understand?
They consistently hear from us things like, “The design A is better than the design B because it requires less cognitive effort and memorability is high, so we should move forward with the design A,” when you could have said, “The design A is better because we observed that people can do all the tasks easily because they can remember all the items here, so it’s easier to use.” Do you see the difference?
While I was proposing, I was explaining why it was so important for “us,” and they didn’t get it. What exactly is a usability lab? Why do we all require a lab? Why should they do so? & how will it help the company (business)?How did I overcome?
During my conversation with the stakeholder, I realised where the gap is.
They didn’t realise that design requires validation. why it is important for the user and the business. and didn’t realise how a lab could help with that.
What process will assist us in the lab in validating our design?
Why can’t it be done online? Do we have the necessary expertise to conduct the usability test properly?
These were the primary doubts that all stakeholders had about my case as I explained the vision, so my goal was to address all of their doubts in a way that they could understand and be excited about it.
Empathize with team members: I began to understand that talking with other team members, such as developers and testers, would help gather more information about what they were working on and, if we knew our design was simple to use before launching the features, how it could be useful for them.
Understanding the current data: I collaborated with the data scientists and glanced over the analytics data. After analysing the data, I determined where users were having difficulty using the product and prioritised issues based on their impact on the business. A usability test could have saved a lot of time and money.
Show the outcome: Actions speak louder than words, so I used some free interior design applications to design the basic architecture of the usability lab as you can see below. These images help me to explain what I’m thinking and how it might be implemented.
Collaboration: Including a multidisciplinary team in your discussions will lead to many interesting discussions and a higher success rate. I worked together with people from various fields to help them feel like they were a part of the project and to get them excited about it.
Final outcome:
As you can see below, these are actual photographs of the usability lab. Naturally, there were some negotiations to be made during implementation, but roughly 90% of my design and vision for the usability lab were accepted. :)
The Take-Away
If you are on the same mission or are planning to implement it, this article will be helpful to you. Understanding your organisation’s goals, working with others to realise their gaps and challenges, speaking in their language, and connecting with your vision will all help you achieve success.
All the best!
🎯 Please applaud if you like it, and don’t forget to follow me for your own benefit.
Thank you!
