Focus Me a Usability Study

A usability study, is that like a focus group?

Clients sometimes ask this question when we start talking about doing usability testing on their website or product. The answer is “well sort of, but not really.”

The well sort of because part of the motivation is the same: the customers (focus group nomenclature) or end users (usability study nomenclature) can provide the team with insight. Here the similarities start and end. The insights that can be gained through a focus group are generally very different from those that come from a usability study. Focus groups are good for finding out people’s thoughts, opinions, and priorities. Usability studies are good for finding out how successful people are at interacting with a website or product, what interactions cause frustration or error, and how long it takes people to complete a task.Let’s look at an example.

Recently some stores have started switching to self-checkouts. Trevs hardware store is considering purchasing self-checkout machines. They want to find out what the response would be from their customers. They decide to run a focus group to find out their customers’ opinions on self-checkouts. The report from the focus group suggests that customers have mixed feelings towards self-checkouts. The cashiers at Trevs provide friendly service, and generally the customers in the focus group appreciate this human interaction; however, Trevs can get very busy during the day. If self-checkout machines would decrease the length of the checkout line, the contractors who shop at Trevs could spend less time waiting inline, and more time on the job. In other words, the focus group results suggest that customers will accept self-checkouts if they see the machines as resulting in faster checkout due to shorter lines.

Trevs hardware gets a sample machine, and decides to run a usability study to find out how easily customers will be able to use the self-checkouts. Will four self-checkout machines provide faster service than two cashiers? Trevs hires Analytic Design Group to run a usability study. The study involves a separate session for each participant. As with the focus group, the participants are recruited from Trevs customer base. The study is designed to cover the most common checkout scenarios, and includes several checkout tasks. The tasks cover the three payment options available with the self-checkout machines, and items that span the ranges of merchandise for sale at Trevs. The results of the study show that customers are able to easily purchase small items with cash; however, other purchase scenarios are more difficult. Over half the study participants were not able to complete a credit card transaction. Participants were not able to checkout large items, which represent a good percentage of Trevs sales. ADGi suggests some changes to how Trevs handles large items to make checkout of large items easier with the self-checkout machines; however, Trevs has no control of the credit card purchase interface. Trevs hardware decides to hold off on purchasing self-checkout machines until a machine that their customers can use is available.

In this example, the results of the usability study resulted in a decision not to purchase a product; however, most of the time the company who controls the website or product runs or commissions the study. The results provide not only observations of issues but suggestions of how to improve the product to resolve these issues. In this example, if the manufacture of the self-checkout machines did some usability testing before offering their product to Trevs, they could have found out the specific issues around credit card payment, and learned how to improve the credit card payment interaction.