Usability Laboratory Testing

GoalDescriptionBenefitsPricingInternet client list

Goal - Lab testing

The goal and style of a usability lab evaluation depends on the development project and its primary goal:

• Prototype evaluation - Rapid, as-needed lab testing of early prototypes and partial builds to optimize ongoing design.  
• Build validation - Evaluate overall usability during your development product's Quality Assurance phase. Identify usability issues that should be addressed before release.
• Current product/site evaluation - Identify and prioritize user issues in your current product that impact usability and user-experience. Identify solutions.
• Competitive assessment: Benchmark your prototype or product against a competitor product, which may be software or a traditional brick-and-mortar solution that is keeping users from using your online solution. 
  
• Usability certification – Certify that your product or site has reached a targeted level or usability and user-experience. Identify what needs to be done to reach the targeted level.

Description – Lab testing

• People recruited from target market(s) attempt to complete key usage scenarios with your product or prototype. For an Internet Banking site, a key usage scenario could be "Find which credit card best suits your needs".
• The test-users are closely observed while they work through the scenarios. The Usability Analyst facilitates the testing session, prompting the user for feedback when appropriate.
• The analyst’s job is to, in real-time and in off-line analysis, understand the user’s momentary motivation, decision processes, experience, and on-task behavior in order to accurately identify and prioritize user-issues, diagnose underlying design issues, and develop recommendations.
• There are two major types of laboratory testing situations that determine how the service is delivered for your project:
1) testing on a (near) complete product, and 2) testing on early designs. The primary differences are listed in this table.

For both situations, a lab test usually involves:

• One user tested at a time in a 1 or 2 hour session.
• Each usage scenario tested with 6 users per target market segment.
• Stakeholders and design team are encouraged to observe from an observation suite (one-way glass and/or AV feed) and can participate appropriately in the sessions using wireless communication to the test facilitator.
• Testing is conducted in my fully equipped usability lab set up at your office, a focus group facility, or at any location around North America.

Benefits - Lab testing

• Feedback is gained directly from the very users who will be using the system, increasing accuracy of the evaluation.
  
• User behavior is observed directly, in moment-by-moment context. User behavior in context provides insight about usability issues that users cannot articulate and cannot be understood by their verbal feedback alone.
  

Pricing - Lab testing

I will provide a quote based on your particular project requirements. The major variance in cost depends on: 

• Required detail of deliverable
• Complexity of the product or product component to be tested
  
• Number and complexity of usage scenarios covered
  
• Number of distinct target markets to be tested
  
• Accessibility of target market participants
  
• The type of design artifacts being tested: (near) complete product or early prototypes.

Following are typical costs for moderate scope projects I have done:

	Project Stage
	Complete or near-complete product	Early prototypes:  In-design project
Typical services cost	CAD $12,000-$45,000 (US $8,000-$30,000)	CAD $7,500 (US $5,000)
Pricing model	Fixed cost, plus expenses	Time & Materials or retainer, plus expenses
Costing background assumptions	Project start is analyst’s first comprehensive look at product	Analyst has already been involved in product design reviews
Expenses*	End-user recruiting costs: typically $75 per recruit End-user incentives: $25 to $100 per participant per hour, depending on market characteristics Facility rental, if required: $500-$1500 per day Travel *Expense figures are the same for Canada and US

Internet client list  2000-2003 - Lab testing

Bank One Bank One Paine Webber T. Rowe Price A1 T. Rowe Price A2 T. Rowe Price B Frank Russell Drugstore.com CIBC Nevada Learning bowneinternet.com

- Existing site - Prototype - Existing site - Prototypes - Build level - Prototype - Prototype - Existing site - Prototype (paper form) - Prototype - Prototype

Also see my experience lab testing IBM database and application development products.

Last update: May 20, 2003
(c) 2002 Don Hameluck Usability Consulting Inc.

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