Usability Testing

Resources on Usability Testing

Department of Homeland Security: Usability Testing Kit —A resource with four approaches to help federal employees perform usability testing.
18F Methods —A collection of tools that describe how teams can put human-centered design into practice.

News and Events on Usability Testing

43 posts

Accessibility Testing for onrr.gov

How do you make sure a website is accessible? This blog post outlines the four steps the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR - pronounced like "honor") at the U.S. Department of the Interior took to verify accessibility. — via DOI Revenue Data

Nov 21, 2022

DHS Usability Testing Kit

Usability testing is a way to learn how easy or difficult it is for people to use something by observing them actually using it. The resources provided in this kit can help you systematize the process, produce reliable findings, and generally expand your ability to test service materials (i.e., paper and digital forms, mobile applications, web pages, etc.) thoroughly with real users — before you launch them out into the world.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Jun 13, 2022

User Experience

A User-Centered Approach: Simplicity and Complexity in a Homepage Graphic

A User-Centered Approach: Simplicity and Complexity in a Homepage Graphic—UX interns go through the redesign and testing process of a homepage graphic to communicate the scope the site.

Aug 12, 2021

User Experience

How Testing Your Documents Can Improve Plain Language Compliance

Usability testing isn’t only for websites. Come work with Dr. Ginny Redish and try out three techniques for quick and easy ways to test the usability of your documents.

Ginny Redish

Katherine Spivey

Apr 14, 2021

An introduction to usability testing, why it’s important, and how to talk about things that aren’t required to do a usability test. — via 18F

Dec 10, 2018

Video

Usability Testing with Steve Krug

Join us for a 90 minute demonstration and talk with Steve Krug, where he will share how you can get started making usability fixes, no matter what your full time job is.

Steve Krug

Jun 14, 2018

Redesigning an Intranet Site: Final Stages, Launch, and Lessons Learned

Helpful lessons from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) on the redesign of an intranet.

Karla Blaine

Mar 07, 2018

Finding Usability Testers: Tips from an Army Recruiter

An Army recruiter shares how her training in the Army has helped in her approach to usability testing, and gives a peek inside how usability testing works for USAJOBS.gov at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Meghan Lazier

Sep 28, 2017

How Do You Redesign a ‘Dinosaur’? Redesigning an Intranet Site: the Beginning Stages

Many content managers in the digital world understand the irrepressible desire to improve, fix, edit, add, and move things around. Indeed, it’s our job to nurture this ongoing process to create, update, test, update again. And, repeat! But, what about those sites or pages that seem to never crawl up to the ‘high-priority’ list and

Karla Blaine

Sep 19, 2016

Creative Usability Test Methods—or My Brief Career as a Robot Voice

When you want to do a usability test, sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone and get creative to get the job done. That’s just what happened to us. We’re well practiced at usability testing at USAGov—in person, remote, hallway tests, first-click tests—all of these things we manage without blinking an eye.

Joanne McGovern

Aug 31, 2016

The User-Centered Redesign of IdentityTheft.gov

I first came across the redesigned IdentityTheft.gov on Reddit, of all places. Someone had posted a link to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) newly redesigned site and wrote: I hope this never happens to any of you as the entire thing can be really stressful. The identitytheft.gov website is a true breath of fresh air…You

Melody Kramer

Jun 01, 2016

Kids.Gov Reenvisioned

At USAGov, we always put our customers first. In the wake of our rebranding efforts, our desire to create a positive user experience across the organization has pushed us to turn a scrutinous eye toward Kids.gov — a site focused on providing information and resources to parents, teachers, and kids. In a cross-organizational effort, individuals

Megan Fella

May 23, 2016

Usability Testing with People Who Have Vision Impairment

It’s a forgone conclusion that usability studies are effective in identifying weak points within a website, but what about testing people who are visually impaired? How hard is it to accommodate them? There are some additional challenges that you may encounter when conducting testing with people with disabilities; however, these challenges should not be considered

Stacey Sarris

Apr 10, 2015

CareerOneStop’s Newest Online Resources: Targeted to User Needs

When the Employment and Training Administration’s CareerOneStop team embarked on a redesign of the site’s online career, training, and job resources, they didn’t dive right into the technical work. Instead, they embraced a user-centered approach that focused on the user experience (UX). Focusing on UX means taking a step back

Kim Vitelli

Michael Harding

Apr 02, 2015

The Usability ‘Aha!’ Moment: How to Turn Cynics into Converts

User Experience (UX) is the comprehensive experience a person has when using a product or application, and usability is the ease of use (or lack thereof) when using it. Many of us have discovered the vast advantages of evaluating usability on our own; however, getting others to jump on board is often a different story.

Sarah Ward

Deborah Bennett

Mar 06, 2015