Blog Post

The Importance of Testing

Interact 2018

During the workshop phase of the Interact 2018 Conference, our team attended the UX track, which featured talks and exercises curated by Crystal C. Yan, Crystal Olig, and Adam Deardurff. This workshop focused primarily on solving customer and business problems by creating a better user experience.
A major way that user experiences can be less than optimal is when a design or engineering team falls victim of their own biases. For example, confirmation bias—when an individual interprets new information in a way that supports their existing beliefs—can cause a team to do things “the way they’ve always been done,” because information and ideas from less senior team members is disregarded. Similarly, bias of social proof—looking to the actions of others try to reflect the correct behavior—can skew testing results if a team member unknowingly introduces bias into a sample by implying that more users choose one option over the other.
A great way to avoid allowing bias to negatively affect your team, and/or your product, is by making extensive use of testing. Sub-par user experiences are most frequently a result of a lack of testing, and/or an unfocused discovery and blueprinting phase. The Nielsen Norman Group reported in 2000 that testing with just five users uncovered as many as 85% of usability issues. Furthermore renowned engineer Roger S. Pressman speculates that if a usability issue costs $1 to be solved in the design phase it would cost $10 to be solved in development, and $100 to be solved after release. It can certainly be tempting to cut corners in the testing and/or planning phases. But the results prove that time spent in these phases will always be worth the time.
For more ways to promote customer satisfaction, click here.
For last year’s Interact Conference recap, click here.