Trusting Your Usability Moderator

Trust is an intrinsic part of any healthy relationship. Whether personal or professional, without trust there is little to build upon.

When conducting usability tests, you may not pick up on a participant’s body language or the nuances which separate what they say from what they do, but a skilled Usability Moderator will. That is why he is a key component when it comes to running a successful test – one that delivers a plethora of valuable insights, which you can use to improve the experience your website or app offers your customers.

But not just any usability moderator. Before the testing begins, you have to be sure you can trust whoever it is moderating the tasks devised to put your designs through their paces. You have to trust them to understand what the goal of your research is and to deliver accordingly. This is where the moderator’s skill comes in, by gently nudging – via their line of questioning – the participant in the right direction.

Of course, this means that beforehand you must be certain of what you wish to achieve by testing your product. You must have firm goals and the usability tests must reflect these, so that when each user performs a task, they are edging you closer to discovering what you have set out to learn. Usability testing isn’t something you do just because you think you should. It is undertaken to inform design decisions and realise specific goals.

That is why trusting your usability moderator is so important. A solid relationship will allow you the confidence to know that the moderator will be on the same page as you with regards to what you wish to achieve, ensuring that he will know what to look out for and how to interpret and react to feedback (both verbal and physical), so that the insights remain contextually aligned to your goals.

Time spent building a relationship with the usability moderator during the briefing process will result in a more efficiently run and relevant testing session, with the potential for a richer level of understanding at its conclusion.

Improve the usability of your website or app and increase its profitability. To find out more, contact us today on +44(0)800 0246 247, or email hello@ux247.com .