At present, the world is witnessing the huge increase in the mobile market and it is growing at a rapid speed. The estimation and prediction done for the mobile world are about 4.5 billion worldwide use the mobile internet and the number of mobile phones will exceed beyond the world’s population.
This is the reason why most of the business is trying to dive deep in the mobile app development and are finding ways to earn a niche. And no doubts in the thoughts that there are the ways the entrepreneurs are finding to learn and earn.
So if you are also at the same stage for mobile app development, looking to develop applications whether iOS or Android one, you need to pay the special attention for its usability.
Mobile Application Ease on Use
How much time do people work or surf on mobile phones? Do you have any idea? Any approximations?
These approximations are pointed out via some of the recent studies. It says that the US users spend their 86 percent of the time on their mobile phones exclusively on apps. And from that, the mobile users spend about 80 percent of their time using only five applications from 24 mobile apps on daily use.
See, how you can rise your business via mobile app development. People demands for the work on the mobile itself. Remember, the rise of your business is possible only when every step of the mobile app development is clear with the expertise without any bug or confusion.
Forbes has estimated that with the coming next year, the mobile phone users will download about 270 billions of mobile apps.
Now the matter is to rank your apps in that top five apps user use on a daily basis. For that, the mobile app usability testing is as important as brushing your teeth every morning.
The usability of Android or iOS application is important as the users will uninstall your apps if they don’t find it useful or comfortable or convenient. What is the user’s action? They find their task more important so they’ll find a way another similar app from the Play Store or App Store.
What is the Usability of the mobile app?
Generally, the users perceive popular mobile apps in regards to the ease of use, convenient and less time consuming to complete the important and purposeful tasks.
Besides the importance of easy usage of the mobile apps, the usability principal does not agree on the list from the manual conclusion.
Accordingly, the best way to evaluate usability is mobile app usability testing.
Mobile App Usability Testing
Before testing the mobile app’s usability, what important aspect is the test plan. You will need to develop the test plan for the mobile app usability testing. Now, the concerns are what does this testing include in itself? Let’s have a look.
- Aims, Goals, and objectives of Test
- Research questions
- Characteristics of Applications
- Method of testing
- List of Task
- Test the environment, equipment, and logistics
- Assessment data and measures
- Presentation of Report
Usability assessment testing methods differ for different mobile app development teams and companies.
1. Objectives of Mobile App Usability Testing
Everything in the world, before starting needs to set a goal. So, it can achieve that goal without distractions. This same goes with usability testing also.
So, what theory you want to set goals to achieve that goal? What queries you want to solve to provide answers?
Now the key question comes. How will you set these goals?
Moreover, it is suggested that ask a few questions to the interested parties of the mobile applications including the developers.
- Application’s Road Map
- A target audience of the application
- Competitor’s applications
- Research about already completed
- The potential about the studies and research you did
- Scope and Timing
Depending on the received answers, you will know the two most important things.
- Stakeholders already knowing the concept
- And what they would like to know
Based on the answers received, it would be easy for you to start defining the goals and usability indicators. It is a must that the defined goals are specific, measurable, and prioritized.
2. Tasks the application will perform
After setting the goals, it’s time to move towards the next step – the tasks. These tasks should include the interactions that the applications should perform. For instance,
- Account registration
- Log in to the account
- Upload the photo
- Accept a friend’s request
Convert these tasks to scripts. These scripts can provide some of the ideas, situations, and background to the testing participants. It’s more like the natural interaction that the normal users would carry out with the apps. To these regards, the assigned scripts should be:
- It should be realistic, effective and with any hints, the testee should be able to perform them. (if the tester is unable to perform or understand how to perform, then your service is not intuitive)
- It should occur in a sequence for the smooth flow of the test session.
For any form of testing, it is important to execute the dry usability test so that you can be sure that the task execution ultimately makes out to the goal.
3. Test the participants
Mobile app usability testing is user-oriented. Moreover, this means that real users perform realistic tasks to the mobile application which is more resource intensive. This can give more accurate results.
I suggest you recruit the test participants who can use their device for at least 3 months. This will overcome the problem and clear it out that the problem exists in a mobile device and not in the application. Additionally, if you use your own test participants’ devices, it will reveal more problems as they will be using real devices rather than top-level devices and fast internet connections which are mostly available in a development environment.
Be careful in recruiting the test participants. What you need to remember is your test participants should match the targeted audience of the application. Hire dedicated developers for your mobile app development.
4. Methods of Usability Testing
There are about two main methods for your mobile app usability testing.
- Laboratory testing usability
- Remote usability testing
What we discussed above is totally laboratory usability testing method. It gives the facility to test mobile applications with real users and real devices. Such a study gives accurate results and draws you towards the right conclusion.
Usability Test Component
Laboratory usability testing is conducted to observe the test participants who perform tasks with mobile applications.
The components required for this testing method includes,
- A camera – to monitor the movement of the test.
- A webcam – to gain data on understanding the interaction of the object via facial expression
- Audio recording software
- Rooms having natural light.
Conclusion
So, now that you know about the real user testing method – Laboratory usability testing method, start with it today to get your mobile app development at the peak of the success.
If not today, still it is important to note for the future mobile app development process. Add the mobile app usability testing methods to the stages of your app development process.
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