Usability Testing

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What Does Usability Testing Mean?

Usability testing is a simple and central idea in IT that involves testing software products, interfaces or technologies on end users. Usability testing is important to develop strategies for finding out how systems work practically when they are delivered to customers.

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Techopedia Explains Usability Testing

Usability testing can be done in many ways. Some companies develop usability testing laboratories, where users visit to complete testing sessions. There is also the option of remote usability testing, where desktop sharing programs or other technologies are used to monitor how people use the interfaces. Usability testing may only involve actual test cases, or, alternatively, users may be asked to give feedback and insight on what they have done and experienced during the testing sessions.

Usability testing is just one of several general categories of testing for software products and systems. Other kinds of quantitative testing are aimed at eliminating bugs or glitches, or making software products run more smoothly. Usability testing, in contrast, is about making a good environment for users — for example, making sure that controls are intuitive, that important things are not hidden in a dashboard and that using the product or system is a pleasant and empowering experience. Although bugs are usability problems, so are other things that this category of testing helps to discover.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.