Self-Reporting as a Part of Usability Testing

A good software testing company may be in the habit of conducting usability testing involving end-users. An immediate user feedback is an essential part of user-centered design methodology, which helps to greatly improve the developed software.

One of the techniques that can be used in this type of software testing is collecting the so-called self-reports, or else the information provided by users through various questionnaires through the process of their work. However, the important thing here is to make it easy and understandable not to distract user’s attention from the process of usability testing.

Benefits of Self-Reporting for Usability Testing:

• Direct feedback from the users;
• Users can state their preferences for particular parts of the software product;
• The data analysis can reveal the details of user performance and logics.

Creating Self-Reports for Usability Testing:

• Make sure that the created questionnaire is short and informative. The user will not think much about your usability testing if you fail at writing a usable form;
• Form your questions in such a way that they require short answers. Escape essay questions that need to be thought over;
• You can ask a user to write down confusing terms and later conduct a post-test debriefing session;
• You can also ask your users to keep diary record about their work with your product in order to conduct a long-term study and a more deep analysis. Here you can use any form – an essay or a questionnaire;

In order to obtain better user feedback, you may include elements of other software testing types into user session.