Usability and User Interface Testing and Evaluation are designed to improve the end users' experience with your software, make it more intuitive and easier to understand, with the ultimate goal of attracting more customers.

Usability can be tested on real users, or undergo an expert evaluation, to find ways to convey information effectively and resolve potential use problems and bottlenecks in the solution.

Besides general documentation on product quality assessment, you get a usability testing checklist for each project and a detailed report that contains specific suggestions and recommendations for resolving usability issues.

Usability testing also reveals whether users feel comfortable with your application or Web site according to different parameters - the flow, navigation and layout, speed and content - especially in comparison to prior or similar applications.

At A1QA we ensure a complex approach to usability testing by checking the following aspects of the product:

• Functionality (verification of convenience, consistency of system workflows in the context of user actions)
• Visual design (information presentation - emphasis on important information, descriptive links, textual content, titles and tagging, bookmarking; readability - rationality of screen density and width, fonts, text size, colors, emphasis, alignment, spacing, page layout)
• User-friendliness (verification of work on the intuitive level and use of the system without studying additional documents)
• Efficiency (identification and elimination of redundant operations)
• Consistency (terminology and conventions consistency, standard icons, standard work of generally-used functions)
• Performance (downloading speed)
• Navigation (navigation design and systems, navigation between pages, icons and buttons, linking, search features, frames and new browser windows)
• Feedback (error messages in plain language with clear instructions, feedback forms, downloads, etc.)

GUI Testing to a great extent determines the success or failure of the system and is especially effective when conducted during the preliminary stages of the project, i.e. prototype and GUI guideline testing. By starting early, you will spend only about one sixth of the normal time on user interface testing and debugging later on.

A1QA runs usability tests in the following phases:

• Initial phase: design and HTML prototypes
• Active application development phase: each new added feature, as well as the complete functionality, are tested for usability
• Stabilization phase
• Support phase

When testing the usability of an application, we use Microsoft, Apple and IBM guidelines, and other industry-standard recommendations.

See featured case studies on usability and GUI testing.

Contact A1QA for a free consultation in the usability and GUI testing domain.