Usability Testing (Digital.gov Plain Language Guide)
A practitioner-level how-to for running a usability test, part of Digital.gov’s plain-language guide series. No publish date is shown on the page; year above reflects the access date, not a stated publication year.
License: Public domain — U.S. federal government work (17 U.S.C. § 105)
Key points
- A typical session runs about one hour, in three parts: an introduction (build rapport, explain the process, ask about relevant background), task scenarios (participant locates information while thinking aloud), and a debrief (neutral follow-up questions about specific words or phrasing that tripped them up).
- Recruit three to five participants matching the intended audience; sources can include colleagues, friends, and family, but not members of the team that built the thing being tested.
- A good scenario gives a believable reason to look for information rather than asking directly for it (e.g. “You have a private pilot’s license and just moved to a new city. Find out if you need to tell the FAA about your new address.”)
- No special permission/approval is needed to test with a small number of people.
- Best run at the draft-content stage, with a retest after revisions to confirm the fix worked.
- Variants worth considering: co-discovery (two participants working together), remote moderated or unmoderated testing, and comparative testing between two versions.