Usability testing is often perceived as cumbersome and time-consuming and therefore not thoroughly applied. This was one of the key observations leading to the topic of my PhD thesis. Particularly conducting tests with actual users is often omitted, which results in the release of suboptimal products and websites. In my thesis, I tackle this problem through more automatic evaluation and optimization, however, in the specific context of search engines. Yet, every type of website—no matter if private or professional—should undergo at least one usability test before its release. Therefore, we need to redesign usability testing itself:
- It must be quicker.
- It must be cheaper.
- It must be easier to understand.
- Still, the result must be as precise as possible.
The U Score is a more general derivative of the findings of my PhD project that provides quick and precise usability evaluation for everyone based on actual research. Any designer or developer who isn’t able to conduct a regular usability test can answer a minimal but exhaustive set of yes/no questions and receives a single usability score for their website or web app. The questions have been designed to be as objective as possible and are based on established research findings. Also, for time reasons I try to minimize the need to involve other people, which, however, cannot be completely eliminated (still, you can receive a complete U Score with the help of only three friends who have a look at your site).
In this way, the U Score provides an approach to usability testing that is as precise as possible given the minimal effort it requires. It’s intended for situations in which designers/developers don’t have the chance to conduct a traditional usability test. Also, it addresses everyone who needs a quick assessment, has never tested the usability of a website before or is new to usability testing. However, please note that the U Score can only be an approximation and is not a complete substitute for established usability testing methods. Still, it gives you a very good baseline according to the motto: Any usability test is better than no usability test!
The current version of the U Score is still in beta development status. Therefore, I highly appreciate your feedback, which you can add to this public Trello board.
For implementation, I’ve relied on a number of well-known technologies and frameworks in combination with some that were new to me (the ones marked with an asterisk):
- Bootstrap Material Design *
- Bourbon *
- CSS3
- ECMAScript 2015 *
- Express
- Grunt
- HTML5
- Jade
- jQuery
- Node.js
- Sass *
I hope the U Score can help to reduce the number of websites who’ve never been tested at all and particularly help you to conduct more and quicker usability tests. Enjoy! 🙂
2008 – Tales of Design & User Experience 