Is traditional usability testing dead?

Skrevet af Thore | User Experience | 4 kommentarer

Alle taler om multivariable tests, og de kæmpe stigninger i konverteringer sådanne testværktøjer kan medføre. Men hvad betyder disse nye real time multivariable testværktøjer for traditionelle usability tests?

Forleden var jeg til formiddagsseminaret “How to convert Browsers to Buyers” arrangeret af blandt andre Interwoven, Webtrends og IIH. Et fantastisk godt arrangement, der satte fokus på netop multivariable tests.

Særligt en af de indbudte talere, produktchef Craig Sullivan fra lovefilm.com, var inspirerende og delte indlevende ud af sine erfaringer med Multivarable testværktøjet – Interwoven Optimost. Ifølge Craig, så opnåede lovefilm.com at øge antallet af kundetilmeldinger med hele 10% i løbet at blot fire ugers pilottest. Bestemt ikke uinteressant.

Efter kurset kom jeg til at tænke på hvad sådann multivarable testværktøjer mon vil komme til at betyde for traditionelle usability tests, hvorfor jeg kontaktede Craig og stillede ham dette spørgsmål: “To what extend does multi variable testing mean the death of traditional usability testing“

I det nedenstående følger Craig’s svar:

Lets consider a simple situation:

When you are running a usability test, you are only considering one variation. You are observing what happens with that test.

A customer visits a web page and finds it difficult to search or navigate. They also have problems signing up for the service when they use the forms on the website.

Most of the customers experience the same problems. All of them experience problems using the forms process on the site.

In this case, a usability test would identify all these issues.

An MVT test would simply optimise what is best given *what is already there*.

The usability test gives you a psychological insight into the interaction with the current page on your site – the MVT test gives you the option to improve this; However, if you have a piece of dogshit, it will only ever be an optimised piece of dogshit using MVT.

If your site, process, form or page-flow has a problem, MVT will not identify the ‘reason’ or help you find the solution. If you want to optimise, you need to understand both.

MVT is not the ‘death’ of usability but a new beginning – the ability to make usability changes but see the measured differences.

Altså ikke døden for usability, men derimod en ny begyndelse, hvor vi som online specialister konkret kan teste og måle effekten af vores ændringer og igennem brugerindragelse vælge den bedste løsning.

The HiPPO is dead – long live MVT!

Thank you Craig!