User Experience (UX) is the key to the success of a website or an application. If the users find it easy and comfortable while using the product, they get stuck by the experience they get. A report suggests that almost 90% of e-commerce users switched their websites due to frustrating user experiences. So, performing user experience testing is a very important part of the software testing process to ensure the accurate functioning of the website or web applications. In this article, we will discuss the basics of user experience testing and various aspects of it.
What is User Experience Testing?
User experience is defined as the process of evaluating how the user interacts with an application, website, or any product that the user is using at that time. User experience is used to determine how much the user is satisfied with the working of an application, how easily the user can interact and use the website or application, and how is their overall experience with that specific product.
User experience helps to find any kind of inconsistency or difficulty in an application or for cross-browser testing so that the issues can be spotted and fixed. This improves the productivity and efficiency of the website or application. Apart from this, user experience in cross-browser testing is also becoming increasingly popular as a result of the widespread use of mobile applications to ensure flawless application operation and maximize the user’s happiness.
Importance of User Experience Testing
To understand the need to perform user experience testing, it is important to know the importance of user experience testing.
- Save Time and Resources: Performing user experience testing helps to save a lot of money as you come to know whether it is providing a good experience to the user or not. Thus, helping to save money that may need to be put into the [project in the future to fix the error that has already been resolved during the testing process.
- Increase the Conversion Rates: The elements of your design that your target users could find uncomfortable will be revealed via user testing, which will also point out areas that need to be updated and make changes. You can think of user testing as your A/B testing’s perfect mate. This is because it helps to shape your project according to the user’s demand at the time of cross-browser testing.
- Reduce Future Security Risks and Bugs: By knowing the user experience during cross-browser testing not only improves your project but also helps to fix any kind of future security threats and bugs. The tester can fix them during the testing process to prevent any kind of cyber threat and can save the consumer from it.
- Helps to Gain User: In the current era of technology, a user has many options for a specific purpose. For example, there are many shopping applications if you want to buy clothes online. So, providing a good user experience is an essential part otherwise; the user may switch to another option for their purpose. User experience testing helps to get detailed feedback from the user side and thus modify the application accordingly.
Types of User Experience Testing
There are various types of user experience testing for cross-browser testing. Let us discuss them briefly one by one in the given section:
- Usability Testing: This type of UX testing is used when we want to focus on the ease of the product that the user uses. In this testing, we keep an eye on how the users are interacting with the product and execute their task using that product i.e., website or application. It helps the tester to get track of the ease and difficulty of the users while performing action on them, and the tester can fix them easily.
- A/B Testing: This type of UX testing is used when we want to make comparison testing for two or more two versions of a website or application. This comparison is performed to get the best working version of a product. We can test the productivity of the application by particularly testing the elements of a product, like scrolling buttons, design elements, etc.
- Contextual Inquiry: This type of UX testing is used when we want to test the product in the user’s environment, how the user is interacting with the product, and how things are working. This helps to get feedback from the user’s side, and the tester can fix any kind of issues hence increasing the product efficiency.
- Surveys and Questionnaires: This type of UX testing is used when we want to get feedback from the users after using a website or application by doing a question session where the testers keep asking about the experience of the users while interacting with the product. This helps to find the area where the tester needs to work more and improve the quality of the product.
- User Acceptance Testing: UAT is a very important stage of the software development process. It is the last testing procedure carried out by stakeholders or end-users to confirm that the software satisfies their needs and expectations in terms of business operations. Before being made available on the market, UAT aims to verify that the software is usable, functional, and conforms to the required specifications. The UAT aims to ensure that the software is supplied with the greatest quality possible and satisfies the needs of the users.
- Remote Testing: This type of UX testing is used when we want to perform cross-browser testing to get the user experience online, where the users are allowed to use the product remotely from their preferred location. This type of UX testing helps to get feedback from people of diverse terrain and location. Here you can get a good audience and test your product more efficiently.
Best Tools for User Experience Testing
User experience testing tools can help you to perform your testing and get a user experience review so that the product can be improved accordingly. There are various testing tools for user experience. Here we will see the top 5 user experience testing tools.
- LambdaTest
LambdaTest is one of the most used digital experience testing platforms that allow for cross-browser and cross-device testing. Such tests can be done across 3000+ browsers, devices, and OS combinations. This platform provides the solution to the testing process that allows the developers and QA team to identify and rectify the UX issue easily. This is leveraged by its offering like automated screenshots, geolocation simulation, and responsive testing that ensure that the website and web application gives a better user experience.
- GTMatrix
This tool helps you to test your product, and it mainly deals with making your product fast and accessible. because a lot of users suffer due to the slow loading and working of the website. This tool will find and fix any kind of CSS error or part of codes that are slowing down your product.
- Maze
If you are trying user experience testing for the first time, then this tool will surely help you out. It has several features, like it collects quantitative data, finding any error in the prototype of the project, etc. This tool is free for the first time. After that, you need to pay to use this tool.
- Optimizely
It is a cross-functional platform that is used to test for the traffic and loads over your project. It is used in cross-browser testing, mobile testing, and many more.
- Userbrain
This tool helps to perform user experience testing remotely. It has more than 15000 testers across the globe that helps you to enhance your testing experience for UX and UI. These tools charge according to per test you perform.
- Userplus
User plus testing tools have many advanced features and methods that help to perform the user experience test for cross-browser testing. It helps to get feedback from the user side then you can modify the project accordingly.
Best Practices for User Experience Testing
Now, let us see the various practices that should be followed during the user experience of cross-browser testing to get a good overall efficiency of your application.
Test in Early Stages
Always remember to test your application in the early stage of development. Doing this at an early stage helps to track the issues and bugs easily. And then you can fix them easily. If done in the early stage, it will not affect your overall product. This helps to save the money of the organization as well as the workforce of the organization.
Organizing the Tasks Thoughtfully
To get the answers to your test-related inquiries, you must specify which tasks you will be testing. Your aim should be to assess the user experience associated with that functionality rather than the functionality of your product. Make sure your tasks for user testing are realistic and actionable. Create a specific step in one of the products that you wish to test, such as starting it up, customizing it, or finishing the checkout process.
Target the Representative Users
To perform user experience tests in cross-browser testing for your application., always remember to select your target user according to the product type and use cases. Target is a representative who plays a very crucial role in getting feedback for the website or application. If the target user is not from the respective group of users, they will not be able to provide the correct feedback for that specific product. You can also hire people according to your testing goals and use case of the product for user experience feedback.
Conclusion
User Experience is defined as the process of evaluating how the user interacts with an application. User experience is important in cross-browser testing as it saves money, helps to gain user crowd, reduces security issues and bugs, etc. The various types of user experience testing are Usability testing, A/B testing, contextual testing, etc. Hope after reading this article, you have the fundamental idea of user experience testing and its importance.