An app that fails to impress end users will subsequently reduce the growth of the business. This is evident from the fact that about 50% of startup businesses close up shop within the first 2 years. A company offering software testing services can relate to this. To make sure the product/application impresses end users, they will have to make significant investments on testing tools.
However, most small businesses and startups have budget constraints, and will have to make do with sub-standard tools to release a barely functioning product. Nevertheless, the investment would be worth it in the long run, and an asset to software development as a whole.
Here are a few tools that can make a considerable difference in usability testing.
1. Optimizely
A user-friendly A/B testing platform, Optimizely can be used to track user visits as well as conversions. The basic package of the plan is free, but the paid version has more useful features. The key features of the tool include:
- Cross-browser testing
- Multivariate testing
- Geotargeting
- Mobile web testing
- Visitor segmentation
2. Five Second Test
Measure the first impressions using Five Second Test by UsabilityHub, with each test requiring just 5 seconds to run. The procedure provides more UI feedback than most other tools, and is quite straightforward.
- Upload brochures, home page designs, landing pages, logos etc. with a question about the usefulness.
- The test takes 5 seconds to analyze the uploaded data
- The reactions are gathered and consolidated
The paid version of Five Second Test is available for $20 per month.
3. Crazy Egg
A click-based tool, Crazy Egg is effective to understand how users click and scroll through a website. The relatively inexpensive user experience tool has 4 key features.
- Heatmap – Know where guests click on the website page.
- Overlay – Splits up the quantity of snaps on each page component.
- Confetti – Provides data on guest sources, look terms, and various other segments.
- Scrollmap – Know how far down the page a user scrolls.
The tool can be put to test for 30 days for free. After the trial period, the user is charged $9 per month.
Conclusion
There are many tools out there that can make usability testing easier. Some of them can be a bit too expensive for the average business. But, in this digital age, users have a lot of options to choose from. If one product or service doesn’t impress them, they can quickly find another. First impression basically makes or breaks the business apparently.
To deliver a product/service/application that impresses users to the point that they come back for more, defines the success of a business. That makes testing indispensable; usability testing more so. So investing on effective testing tools can be beneficial in the long run.
