Essentially, usability testing concerns itself with developing a qualitative understanding of the extent to which potential customers find a product easy-to-use and suitably functional. This can be for physical products like an espresso machine or industrial racking equipment, or intangible products like a new website, smartphone app, and so on.
There are a couple of major reasons why usability testing can be useful or, in some cases, necessary as part of a market research project. These include:
Usability testing can help detect problems, bugs or other issues in prototypes -- or early stage beta versions if the product is software -- before moving into mass production. The costs of fixing these problems or repairing a damaged reputation can be excessive, and in extreme cases prohibitive. This is especially the case with new businesses, or those that are not well-known. Indeed, a flawed product launch can fatally damage a reputation and send a brand hurling towards the dustbin of history. While this has always been a problem, the internet has given eternal life to “bad news stories.”
Users (read: future potential customers) can provide valuable feedback that can be leveraged to improve products, build marketing campaigns, and so on. With this being said, it is important to note that usability testing and market research are not synonymous.
Usability testing focuses on what people do, and seeks to capture, categorize and analyze their observed behaviors and interactions with a product. Market research focuses on how people feel, and what their opinions and views are regarding different topics.
Both of these data gathering methods can complement each other and paint a vivid picture of whether a product is going to be successful and why or whether a product is not going to be successful, and what needs to change. What’s more, sometimes what people say or think they do, and what they actually do in real life, are not aligned. This discovery in itself can be quite insightful, and prevent businesses from updating or launching a product that is admired, but may not necessarily become profitable because people will not buy it, or use it as intended.
To learn more about whether your market research should involve usability testing -- and if so, how it should be designed and carried out so that it is cost-effective and results-based -- contact the Qlarity Access team today. Let’s talk about your business and your goals. Then we can see whether CFR can help you achieve those goals with eye-opening market research!