This article by Jakob Nielsen talks about why he believes that one only needs to test usability with 5 users. He goes on to explain that usability tests in general, are a waste of resources and funds. He explains that the best way to test is running several small tests that you can afford on no more than 5 users, in comparison to running a single test on more than 5 users. With the test involving the 1st user, he states that the insights shoot up. With the 2nd user, things are generally the same (overlapping data) but it also adds some new insight. The 3rd user provides a small amount of new data as well. One of Nielsen’s main points is that the more users = less you learn; due to the amount of repetition.
In terms of running several tests, it seems as though doing more than one is deemed most efficient. With their being more than one, they can test different things in different ways from one another. For example, the second test can fix the problems from the first test; while introducing something new as well. As the tests continue, one can go deeper into the user experience and test that in various ways.
In conclusion, Nielsen states that testing 5 users on their experience with several tests is deemed most efficient in testing user experience. The problem with a study of one person, is the risk of being misled by them; and their number not being representative of the population of the website. The problem with fifteen people, is that there will be a lot of overlap with the information and not show much of “new” data. The only reason to test for more than five users would be if you needed that many to accurately represent the population.
World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience. “Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users.” Nielsen Norman Group, www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users/.
This is very interesting considering we have always been told that these type of tests should be conducted in a larger scale to assure you get the proper results. I would think that 5 isn’t enough to gather all of the proper information. What makes 5 the magic number why not any more?
My article also mentioned the testing process when it comes to determining your content’s usability. My article also said that you should not use more than 5 users when testing. It also mentioned that the test should be run more than once so that you can determine any outlier answers and what needs to be changed. Did this article mention anything about how the tester should act?
I did not read this article so this strikes me as super interesting. It does make sense that for a webpage you would not need a lot of people to figure out how to better create a webpage. In the article that I chose it said that tests are not the best way to figure out what users want, so I wonder the types of tests this author suggests. What type of test do you think the users take?