Expertly-executed usability testing for websites, apps and more – delivering unbeatable user insight.

When you’re committing long-term investment to the development of a new product or digital transformation strategy, or to improving the performance of your current digital channels, you need the highest levels of confidence before you commit to any decisions.

At Box UK our consultants have hundreds of hours of User Experience (UX) testing under their belts for clients across a wealth of industries – not least FMCG, finance, membership and education – and we offer a number of different user testing services that fit the bill no matter what your particular need.

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What is usability testing?

Catering to your unique timescales and environments, our agile usability testing services provide in-depth insight into your users, giving you the confidence you need to make decisions about features and roadmaps as well as satisfying your stakeholders that budgets are being appropriately spent.

By employing a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods in our UX testing programmes you’ll get a rich picture of user behaviour that gets to the very heart of their needs, motivations and expectations. And if your digital product or service is already live, usability testing can provide you with insight into behavioural patterns and user perceptions to help you understand how it’s currently performing – and what you can do to improve.

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Every one of our projects begins with a collaborative workshop, led by a senior UX consultant and shaped by insight from tools such as Google Analytics and heat maps service Hotjar. It is here that you will agree objectives, define user types, and map out the key user journeys and tasks to be tested.

Your UX consultant will then create a bespoke test plan that details exactly how your programme of testing activity will be executed – from participant recruitment through to the carefully-crafted test script.

Depending on your particular needs this test plan may draw on a number of UX testing approaches, but no matter what techniques are used, your consultant will analyse and interpret all findings to deliver you a comprehensive summary report.

How can we help?

Whatever your requirements, as an experienced agile usability testing agency we have the skills and expertise to help you. Your usability testing report will include:

  • Observation notes, task timings, success rates and participant feedback, highlighting common patterns, key findings and priority areas to focus on.
  • Any additional findings such as the output from architecture reviews, content audits, site search analysis, and navigation and taxonomy assessment.
  • Results from tree testing, card sorting and five-second testing activities.
  • Relevant industry data and supplementary UX research, including competitor analysis, to understand how your service performs against usability standards.
  • Prioritised short-, medium- and long-term recommendations for improvement, providing clear next steps to share with your wider team.

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Our approach to usability testing

Our range of UX testing approaches means that whatever your particular needs, we have the solution, with a range of methods including:

Guerrilla UX testing

Guerrilla UX testing is conducted using portable equipment and loosely-defined test scripts in natural environments – a lightweight approach that particularly lends itself to finding out what users do and don’t like about individual elements of your website or application. As the planning and execution of these sessions requires less time and lower overheads than other usability testing methods, guerrilla testing can also, importantly, be conducted frequently throughout your project.

Remote user testing

Of course, in some cases it may be difficult for participants to attend usability testing sessions in person. In these cases conducting moderated testing remotely means you’ll still get the rich, qualitative insight you need. Unmoderated remote usability testing, on the other hand, allows participants to follow pre-defined test scripts in their own time – delivering large volumes of quantitative results, and quickly.

Laboratory testing

Lab-based testing is one of the most powerful means of uncovering usability issues in your site and application. The specialist facilities available at Box UK mean clients can monitor the moderated in-person usability testing session via remote video link – whether in our dedicated observation room or from anywhere else in the world. Using the latest technology means that you can discuss activity as it’s taking place without running the risk of compromising the accuracy and trustworthiness of results through the use of one-way mirrors.

We also offer a range of specialised testing services including focus group usability testing, mobile usability testing, web accessibility testing, and user testing with both UK and international audiences, to give you targeted insight to support your digital strategy.

Benefits of usability testing

Testing participant sketching out ideas for a web page

Whether you’re launching a new product or are in the process of improving something that already exists, understanding what your users truly think is crucial, as the best-designed websites and applications – with the highest return on investment – result from researching the needs, motivations, expectations, contexts and constraints of the people who will use them.

Undertaking a programme of UX testing will deliver you improvements in both user satisfaction and business performance, by revealing common drop-off points and areas of complexity along with the improvements needed to enable visitors to complete tasks quickly and seamlessly.

Woman at computer screen with graph on it

By testing with users on a variety of representative devices (guided by your analytics and user research techniques) you’ll also improve cross-device performance and ensure your website or application keeps pace with changing technology trends. Direct user feedback additionally allows us to capture valuable insight into new features and innovations that can deliver crucial competitive advantage, and help drive the future growth of your digital platforms.

The objective evidence gathered through usability testing also supports fast, effective decision-making and provides a shared vision for everyone on your team to work towards while helping introduce a culture of user-centred design that focuses attention on the user and their needs, to extend the value of your testing programme long beyond your initial project.

Our work

Middlesex University

To gain the rich qualitative insight Middlesex University required to assess the effectiveness of their online platform, we embarked on an extensive programme of website user testing.

Conducting testing with four representative user groups across three different devices and multiple user journeys, we provided the educational institution with the insight needed to move its digital strategy forward, along with expert recommendations for further improvement and refinement.

RCN

With the help of Box UK’s UX consultants, the Royal College of Nursing used their annual Congress to find out what members thought about their brand-new digital platform, while it was still in beta.

Using a combination of user experience testing approaches to gather feedback – including conducting 114 guerrilla testing sessions over the course of three days – our consultants extracted insight to help guide future development plans, producing a series of prioritised recommendations for the RCN to take away.

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