Optional — Review how to plan and conduct a usability study

Your high-fidelity prototype for your responsive website is now ready for testing with real users! At this point in the design process you’re looking to get feedback on the visual design of your website. You want to evaluate thing like the type, colors, and icons, as well as the interactive elements of your designs, such as button states and animations.

For the purposes of this course, planning and conducting this usability study are optional. But in the real world, you would conduct research on your high-fidelity designs before finalizing them. Why? Testing and iterating are important parts of the UX design process. The only way you can continue to improve your designs is to get lots of feedback.

You planned and conducted a usability study earlier in this course for your low-fidelity prototype, and if you’ve been taking the courses of this certificate program in order, you also planned and conducted usability studies in earlier courses. You’re basically a professional at this point!

If you’d like a refresher, you can review these resources about planning a UX research study. Watch this video to get to know the seven elements of a research plan at a high level. Then, check out the following videos that dive into each of the seven elements, and build your own research plan as you go:

• Project background, research goals, research questions
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Methodology
• Participants
• Script

You can also use the template for a UX research plan. Fill in each section of the plan as you watch the videos listed above.

To use the UX research plan template, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to template: UX Research Study — Plan [Template].

OR

If you don’t have a Google account, you can download the template directly from the attachment below.

Google UX Design Certificate — UX Research Study Plan [Template]

DOCX File

If you need some reminders about conducting a usability study, you can check out these resources from earlier in the certificate program:

• This video explores best practices for starting a usability study if you’re the moderator.
• This video explores best practices for communication during a usability study, such as asking open-ended questions, asking follow up questions, and summarizing participant responses for confirmation.
• This reading will help you learn more about usability study best practices, including helping participants get comfortable, putting people first, filling out necessary paperwork, communicating clearly, and asking the right questions as the researcher.
• During usability studies, taking notes is key. Check out this video that introduces note-taking methods that are commonly used during usability studies, and this video that dives deep into using a spreadsheet to take notes. You might also want to utilize the template for spreadsheet note-taking, which contains an empty tab that you can copy for your own study and a completed tab to serve as an example.

To use the template for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to template: note-taking spreadsheet template

OR

If you don’t have a Google account, you can download the template directly from the attachment below.

Google UX Design Certificate_ Usability study note-taking spreadsheet [template]

XLSX File

Good luck testing and iterating on your designs!

Sources: Google UX Design Professional Certificate

Coursera | Responsive Web Design in Adobe XD