One of our most important focus points is the usability of our own test interface. Participating in a Usabilla test must be simple, fun, and way more exciting than a standard survey. In the past year we’ve released about 15 iterations on our test interface. Each iteration was based on feedback from participants, users, and experts using Usabilla. We’ve just released a small update and we think this update solves the most important usability issues of our test interface.

Problem: Participants don’t have a clue that they can add notes.

Usabilla is primary a quantitative tool. Notes add a qualitative aspect to the tests and are of in many cases of great help to interpret test results.  If you run a test case with for example 250 participants and all those 250 participants add 20 points with notes, your ‘lean & mean’ test is probably no longer ‘lean & mean’. This is the reason why we focus on points as primary response and notes as secondary. Unfortunately in our previous releases we didn’t manage to find a good balance between these two interactions.

The icons below were used in our previous release. Users can click anywhere on the screen to add a point. The ‘plus’ icon could be used to attach a note. Once a user added a comment, the plus changed to a note. Usabilla is currently available in 20 different languages. Maintaining these translations in a fast developing startup is not quite easy. That was one of the reasons why we focused on using icons instead of text in the first place. Unfortunately these icons were not as self explaining as we naïvely assumed (indeed, we should have tested this). And even the introduction movie we added didn’t really help (who watches these movies? ).

Solution: Improved icons and a new introduction movie

Back to the drawing board. We redesigned the icons for points and got rid of Mickey Mouse. Instead of the mysterious ‘+’ (‘plus what?’) and his little more obvious counterpart ‘x’ (’closing a note‘) we used a little bit more obvious analogies. A trashcan and a post-it. Was it really that hard? .

And, as a bonus: our test interface now really works flawlessly on the iPad. The delete and note icons were too small too use with a thick index finger and should be clickable now.

The introduction movie for a test showed the previous icons. We made a new movie, unfortunately only available in English, showing a sample task and the basic interactions. The movie automatically starts after the introduction has been loaded (no sound, so we think in this case that’s ok).

Testdrive

Try it yourself in this demo case.

What do you think?

We think we made a big step forward in usability with this tiny redesign. Our first own tests were promising. But we’re not done yet. We would love to hear your opinion about these changes. Feel free to share your findings and suggestions for improvement. We’re just getting started.

Not so long ago I have been interviewed by the experienced usability expert Craig Tomlin about my background, thoughts on UX, and the future plans of Usabilla. Read the full interview on Craig’s blog: Useful Usability.

The sign up button or link is an important call-to-action on the homepages of most web services. In a recent demo case Usabilla compared the sign up on the homepages of 10 different web services. Users found the sign up button on the Twitter homepage in 1.8 seconds. Animoto was a good runner up with 2.3 seconds. On average it took participants 3.5 seconds to find a way to sign up for these web services.

The differences between the performance of these websites on this important task are big. But what makes Twitter homepage stand out in this test? Why do the sign up buttons at Animoto, Vimeo and MyNameisE catch attention faster than those of Wakoopa, Basecamp, and PayPal? We would love to hear your opinion about these test results.

Results

Twitter – 1.8 seconds

Animoto – 2.3 seconds

Vimeo – 2.9 seconds

MyNameisE – 3 seconds

Usabilla – 3 seconds

Facebook – 3 seconds

Foursquare – 3.3 seconds

Wakoopa – 4.3 seconds

Basecamp – 5.3 seconds

PayPal – 6 seconds

Test data

Tested with Usabilla

This usability test was conducted with the online usability tool Usabilla. This online usability tool allows you to collect direct and valuable feedback from your users in any stage of the design process. Users share their opinion or perform tasks by adding points and notes directly on the webpage, mockup, wireframe, screenshot, or image. Sign up for a free account to try it yourself.

The following table shows a selection of currently available webtools for remote usability testing and their features. Most of these services offer ways to analyze the behaviour of users. Usabilla provides valuable insights by collecting (visual) feedback.

We have been working on some usability improvements in our frontend. These changes have been released last week and should enhance the user experience for your participants. Users get a clear introduction before they start the test. The toolbar has been simplified, the dimming on the mockups has been removed and users no longer need to register before they can rate a page. These improvements should push up the conversion rates for your tests.

Since the launch of our first release about one month ago we spend a lot of our time on killing bugs and fixing small glitches. Most bugfixes have been silently released in the past weeks. Fortunately we have been working on the development of some interesting new features, which will be launched in about two weeks. Expect a better flow in our backend, some small improvements to guide the participants of your test and a widget to easily promote your test on your website.

Some changes in the backend
We’ve created some new designs to guide our users a bit more in creating their tests. A test contains one or more pages, which contain one or more tasks (questions). To start collecting feedback a user has to create a test, select one or more pages and add tasks for each page.  When a user adds a new page, we will automatically add some sample tasks. In the current situation the relation between a test and its pages is not entirely clear. With this new design we hope to create an improved overview of your test and better illustrate the relationship between a test, the pages of a test and the tasks for each page.

Sign up and receive more info on our updates
We’re working on more exciting features. We hope to launch some big updates in the upcoming months. Sign up for our closed beta if you want to be the first to test drive our tests and collect valuable feedback from your users.

User Experience diagram, originally uploaded by Paul Veugen.

User Experience is more than only usability. The above image is based on Peter Morville’s UX honeycomb and illustrates six basic elements of user experience. These six elements are divided into an inner & outer circle. Desirable, credible, & valuable are more intrinsic values. Findable, Accessible, & Usable are more extrinsic. These elements can be used as a guideline for testing.