A usability test is used to measure the usability of a part or whole of a product. It basically involves giving tasks that are commonly performed or intended to be performed on a part or whole of that product, to participants that are representative of the product’s users.
This is how I would define a usability test in brief to a layman.
About the small usability issues across your application that you think you can ignore, think of them in this way- one small crease on an ironed shirt is okay. But creases all over and you have an un-ironed shirt.
In the Google TechTalks video from 2006, Jen Fitzpatrick talks about the art and science behind Google’s design process and share examples of how design, usability and engineering come together at Google to create great products.
Jen Patricks is an Engineering Director at Google, who at least was then managing Google’s user experience team. A founding member of Google’s UI team, Jen has also led the UI design, testing and implementation of numerous features and changes to the Google.com site.
She joined Google in June 1999 as a software engineer and has also served as Engineering Director for Google Adwords and Google’s Internal Systems engineering group.
Jen is a graduate of Stanford University where she received a B.S. in Symbolic Systems and an M.S. in Computer Science.
Apala Lahiri Chavan is Vice President,Asia for HFI and manages offices in India, China, and Singapore, and a Contextual Innovation lab in Bangalore. She is an award-winning designer (International Audi Design Award) and has led teams spanning design, development, testing, and deployment of software products. In addition, she is ACM SIGCHI’s Vice Chair for local chapters.
