Importance of user psychology in usability testing

Usability testing is a research method that is based on user behavior in scenarios defined for a product and/or prototype. User experience, UX design, and product features are reviewed as feedback after testing. Feedback and data characteristics make up the contents that need to be enhanced. That’s why users should complete the test process in a healthy way.

Usability testing has five fundamental parts: a test plan, a test environment, recruiting participants, conducting the test, and data analysis.

Today, there are several arguments, technology, and service institutions connected to these stages today. However, it is still debatable whether there are some handicaps in the psychologies of the participants in the test process. Besides the users’ general mental states, our communications with them and the testing environment might have an impact on the results.

Here are seven elements that affect/manipulate user psychology;

Mission Awareness Guiding Advertising the product instead of informing Prize Corporate approach Providing a comfort zone Inconsistency between time and tasks 1. Mission Awareness

Usability tests are done to test the flow of a product or analyze the usability of a feature or a product. The process of a usability test is run by the moderator over several tasks. As a moderator, if we reflect on feelings of anxiety that come from our mission awareness to participants of the test too much, we might affect participants' mentality without intention.

During the test, in the case of having some kind of attitude such as encouraging, affirmative, and appreciative even to motivate users, may cause users to believe that we have expectations for them. Therefore, they may feel too much stress to meet the expectation. To minimize this;

We can start the test with a task that is simple to understand and complete, so that the user will have acquired the needed motivation through his/her actions. Our way of communication shouldn’t be cold, distant, or formal. Also, it shouldn’t be like a parent providing assistance to their child. For encouraging words or gestures, we should be careful to display them at the end of the activity because any change in attitude during the task will cause the user to feel that being judged. While doing all this, we are supposed to remember that we are in that test as an observer. That’s why we need to interact with users if only it’s necessary.

2. Guiding

It is essential that the sentences chosen to deliver the tasks should not have any meaning that will guide the user. We could not get objective results from the test, if the words we used and the way we spoke were either helping, affirming, or interfering with their actions.

Guiding by connecting One of the common mistakes is to provide the user with hints by making the sentence of the task too detailed.

For example; as a moderator we have a usability test to do for a shopping website and we are supposed to ask the user to buy blue jeans for a friend on it. If we had asked it in a way like “Could you buy blue trousers with filtering for your friend?”, we would have messed with the user and influenced the test outcomes.

It is critical to avoid helping users as much as possible and to allow time to think after delivering the tasks in order to obtain entirely objective outputs.

We need to try to receive data based on observation of the whole process for any outcome, both success and failure.

3. Product advertising instead of informing

The user is provided with brief information about the product and/or prototype before going to the test administration phase. These basic explanations can be made in a few pithy sentences; however, sometimes it can be seen as a kind of thing where the quality of the speaking turns into an advertisement for the subject. To prevent this, we should avoid continuing the conversation in a question-and-answer format.

In moderation, a product or feature can be described in objective sentences without giving the impression of advertisement or promotion. After that, it can be said that they can discover them in the test while doing tasks if there is anything that the user wants to know. Thus, we could avoid any advertising or promotional perception of the product and/or prototype.

Keep in mind that the goal of usability testing is neither to get the user to buy the product nor to advertise it. The goal is to analyze the reasons behind users’ behavior with a scientific approach and researcher identification.

4. Prize

Subscribe to the Medium newsletter According to research conducted by Cliff Anderson in 2007, money may be the best prize for people to take the time for these types of examinations. We may not always offer this incentive, though. In this case, it is possible to proceed as follows:

Gift cards or vouchers may be presented instead of cash. Gift certificates may be awarded if there is no prize that provides a financial benefit. Priority may be promised for participation in upcoming company activities.

A pleasant gift certificate An incentive prize can be a great way to establish the basis for future testing to be successful, as well as boost interest in already-available products or services. The point to pay attention to here is that the prize is awarded after the test. The fact that the participant gets a prize indicates that the test has been over. Otherwise, if the prize is rewarded before the usability test begins or while some data and feedback are still required, it may cause the participant too relaxed and have a negative impact on their performance throughout the final tasks.

Before the test starts, it is also risky to give information about what the prize is. Because if people like an award, they may provide comments in an effort to show that they are deserving of it. Furthermore, if they don’t like the prize, they may quit the test. Consequently, the best option is to wait until the conclusion and keep the prize a surprise.

We should be careful that the prize is not too cheap or too expensive. We actually expect the users to dedicate their time and energy to these tests; therefore, the incentive we present to the users is supposed to be motivating. If the price is too low, people may feel underappreciated for their opinions; if the price is too high, they might have expected the same thing every time.

That should not be overlooked; the prizes we offer to participants play a determining role in what users think about our future tests, products, and company.

5. Corporate approach

It contributes to positive psychology by explaining the function of usability testing in the corporate approach to the user at the beginning of test sessions with a few phrases.

In the case of the corporate approach, the phrase “test” may create tension for some users. We don’t want to have a negative impact on user psychology before starting the tasks. Despite this possibility, when informing participants about the importance of tests in the corporate vision, we can choose more restrained word groups, such as “customer feedback sessions, which are responsible for developing and bringing the product to a more usable level, rather than the phrase “usability tests”.

We must not go into too much detail on the subject, since putting more than enough emphasis on corporate identity may cause users to feel pressure, even if we don’t want it.

It is beneficial to remember that users don’t have to connect with the product/company for whom we are conducting these tests.

6. Providing a comfort zone

For in-person usability tests, the area provided to the participant is crucial. The testing environment must be peaceful and quiet; otherwise, noise may distract people’s attention or reduce their motivation for completing the task.

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Interview Room — Monitor Room Somewhere, having decorative furniture unnecessary for the test equipment might have the possibility of being distracting. In-person user testing in a place with as few things as possible, such as an office room, can assist the participant in minimizing the level of effect from external stimuli and saving their concentration.

In remote usability testing, conditions are more flexible;

A participant connecting remotely If the participant provides the necessary equipment, s/he will be able to carry it out wherever and whenever s/he is available. However, the cruciality of what to do before the test day expands in order to ensure that the person connecting remotely cares enough about the test to finish the tasks appropriately. The instructions for the participants must be carefully prepared; notification should be issued a few days before the test, and approvals from each of them must be obtained.

In some remote usability tests, noise from the background may be realized because of the place where the user connects. If the person’s speech can be understood in such instances, not alerting them about the noise may prevent a negative mentality.

It is acceptable to claim that both in-person and remote usability tests have some manipulating factors in terms of comfort zones. After all, briefly, it is possible to gain relatively goal-oriented outputs by picking the proper test alternative based on the business model, the company’s system, and its capacity.

7. Inconsistency between time and tasks

During the process of usability testing, it could have the guiding effect of stating time for the user when the moderator phrases scenario and time for the scenario together. Also, if we are not careful about this, it may make them feel like they are in a competition.

Testing with more than one user in the same place For example;

Let’s assume that during a usability test for a product or prototype, we give the participants the task of “Could you create an account in 5 minutes?” That phrase the task within a specific time frame may come out in the following:

A negative effect in the way of increasing anxiety, stress​​​​​​​, or pressure for some users. A positive impact has similarities to doping for some users who have an ambitious and challenging nature. In the first case, the user’s task may take more than 5 minutes to accomplish, whereas in the second case, it may take less than five minutes. Therefore, even though we don’t want to, we may have had some control over the task completion time. In both cases, it is a matter of the distortion of the neutral outcome that is normally obtained.

To gain more accurate and objective data from user tests, it is important to account for the non-delivery of estimated times to the user together with the task.

So, what now?

As far as we are aware that there are several deliberate features for not impacting participants’ psychology in user testing, both before and during the test. As moderators, we should look over and evaluate our manner of communicating with users as well as the test records in the context of the elements that affect user psychology. In this way, we can minimize possible impacts in the long run by improving our objective observation skills.

Source https://books.google.com.tr/books?hl=tr&lr=&id=7fsRZ30GD1QC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Examinations+supervising+/+manipulating+user+psychology+in+usability+testing&ots=sZ_snNY3jq&sig=YZHIV7A6kPSf4trEdS8nk1g783c&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false https://boxesandarrows.com/testing-incentives-the-best-way-to-pay/