Low Cost Usability Testing

Website usability and design testing can be an expensive business. Many small and medium web projects can’t justify the costs of commissioning professional usability testing. Either the project budget is too small or testing would adversely affect the completion date. If you’re involved in a small scale project which can’t afford full usability/design testing then the lead designer and project manager will usually stick to industry best practice for U.I. elements and overall design.

Designers, clients and project managers rarely disagree on core design/usability issues, where you place a navigation bar or call to action are easily resolved. However, disagreements over color, photos and fonts are common place. Typically these types of disagreements can be settled by testing, but if you don’t have the budget – what can you do?

 

Until now – not much! Thankfully Usabilityhub.com identified this problem and produced a set of tools which allow you to quickly test design and UI parameters for little or no cost. You can learn how visitors interact with your design before launching. Find out what they think, what they remember, and where they make mistakes.

Test out mock ups/designs using a secret URL which you can share on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and email. Use the power of social media to get test results for free. You can also order responses from the UsabilityHub community at the cost of 1 credit each. Responses from testers of specific demographics (country, age range, gender) cost 3 credits each. You can invite as many of your own testers as you like for free. Fifty credits can be purchased for $45 and one thousand credits will cost you $500. However, you can earn karma credits by completing other people’s tests!

If you’d like to check out this fast and free method of testing click the link below.