Module 2: Testing Usability

Overview

As you saw in the previous module, one method of quality control for websites is to run automated tests to ensure that the websites comply with standards. Automated tests are helpful, but they don't tell us much, if anything, about a site's usability. A site could be fully standards-compliant, but could be still be so poorly designed that users can't easily find what they're looking for on the site or use the site for its intended purpose. This is where usability testing comes in. Usability testing is a technique for evaluating how people interact with a product, in this case, a website. There's no substitute for observing actual users as they interact with the site. This unit contains a single lesson, in which you will conduct a usability test.

Lessons