How to analyze usability testing results effectively

Most customers won’t purchase a product that’s difficult to use, and those who do will quickly become disappointed and search for alternatives.

Usability testing is one of the best ways to ensure a product is intuitive and enables customers to easily accomplish their goals. However, gathering results from usability tests is not enough. Getting usability spot on involves analyzing those results.

Find out what it takes to turn usability tests into usable products.

You need to glean actionable insights from your usability testing findings. These insights must also be correct, as forming the wrong conclusions could push your product in the wrong direction. Similarly, if you fail to notice key patterns, you could leave something in your product that users don’t like.

Follow these steps to ensure you assess your results thoroughly and accurately.

1. Organize the data

Gather session recordings and transcripts, consolidate notes, and categorize your findings.

Take the time to properly organize the data you have gathered so that it’s easier to find as you move through the later stages of analysis. This will also give you an initial idea of the types of issues users have reported.

2. Identify key issues

Take a detailed look at the user feedback and any behavior you have recorded. Watch out for patterns that show the user is struggling or frustrated. These issues can arise anywhere, but pay close attention to these common pain points:

• Navigation paths that confuse users or lead to dead ends

• Interface elements that don’t behave as users expect

• Features that users find difficult to discover or understand

Document problem areas thoroughly. Include any quotes or timestamps to help the product development team quickly review the issue as they work on fixes.

Don’t rely on qualitative feedback alone when looking for issues; users won’t always reveal their frustrations. They might not even know something is wrong—they are not as familiar with the product as you are.

Quantitative metrics, like task completion rates, will tell you if users are deviating from expected paths. With these insights, you can design solutions to help them use the product more effectively.

3. Quantify findings and benchmark

Like most other aspects of your business, key performance indicators (KPIs) can help determine whether your design changes are moving the needle in the right direction. They can also reveal how well you stack up against competitors or industry standards.

Track important usability metrics and use them to create a baseline from your initial testing results. As you conduct further tests, compare the new results with the old. You can also compare your metrics against those of your competitors.

Numbers moving in the right direction indicate that changes are well-received. Metrics sliding backward suggests you need to reevaluate.

Here are some useful metrics to track:

• Task completion rates

• Time on task

• Error rates

• User satisfaction scores

• Number of clicks or steps to complete tasks

• System usability scale (SUS) score

Remember to control for variables as you compare numbers. For example, the completion rate may decrease for a task with added functionality, and time on page might decrease when a task is simplified or automated. Declining metrics don’t necessarily suggest your changes are problematic, so be aware of potential tradeoffs ahead of time. Further testing on how well the new functionality is received can help you decide if a tradeoff is worthwhile.

4. Synthesize insights

Identifying users’ issues is only part of the equation. Next, you need to clarify the metrics identified using qualitative data that identifies the main themes and pain points from the testing session. Use this to explain why users struggle and why they succeed.

As you go through this process, consider which metrics are important for your project. For example, a web development team working on an ecommerce site might focus on cart abandonment rates and checkout completion times. A team working on a content-heavy site might prioritize navigation efficiency and content discoverability. This awareness will keep your final recommendations focused and stop you from working at cross purposes.

5. Share insights and recommendations in a final report

For insights to be useful, they must be presented to stakeholders and developers clearly. Your final report should feature an overview of your findings alongside a list of user pain points. For each finding, develop a specific recommendation to improve the product.

Prioritizing tasks will simplify project management. Bear the following in mind when prioritizing tasks:

• The severity of the usability issue

• The number of users affected

• The technical complexity of implementing solutions

• The business impact of changes

• Available resources and timeline

Throughout the report, make it easy for your team to quickly find and resolve problems. You can use charts, screenshots, reels, quotes, and other methods.

6. Iterate and validate

The first round of usability testing will provide a list of user issues. However, you won’t know for sure whether you have resolved them until you conduct more testing. This will also alert you to any new problems your changes may have introduced. 

Product refinement is a continual process, so usability testing should be conducted regularly. Even a product with a perfect usability score can become frustrating or less intuitive to users as market conditions and expectations change. Regular usability testing keeps you ahead of shifting dynamics.

7. Start with a template

It can be easy to become disorganized when you’re sifting through a lot of data. Starting with a template will help you organize your notes effectively.

You might create the template yourself or use one from a tool in your workflow. For example, Dovetail has a built-in usability testing template that brings the platform’s powerful customer feedback management to the process of analyzing usability testing results.

It’s time to create a comprehensive report based on your findings. Including the following elements will ensure your teams and stakeholders always have the information they need.

1. Summary

The executive summary is a high-level overview of your testing results, giving key findings and recommendations concisely and comprehensively. This summary is for stakeholders who want to understand key takeaways without getting bogged down in technical details they may not understand.

Your summary should include:

• Overview of testing objectives

• Number of participants and testing sessions

• Key findings and patterns

• Critical issues identified

• Recommendations

2. Goals

One usability testing session cannot cover every possible scenario. Those reading the report need to understand its goals and limitations. Clearly set out your goals in the final document, including:

• Specific research questions you aimed to answer

• Tasks you wanted to evaluate

• Areas of the product you focused on

• Target user groups you included

• Success criteria for testing

This section should be limited to a single slide or page.

3. Actionable insights based on severity

This section should dive directly into insights that drive decisions. Include behavioral data, quotes, or visuals to illustrate the problem, and positives and negatives to give stakeholders a complete look at what does and doesn’t work.

It can also be helpful to compile a list of recommendations that require minimal resources. These “quick wins” will help boost morale and build momentum for the larger changes to come. They will also clearly demonstrate the value of usability and get buy-in for more difficult changes.

4. Methodology

Listing your methodology will help provide further context for readers. Include details such as:

• Testing methods (moderated vs. unmoderated, remote vs. in-person)

• Participant demographics and recruitment criteria

• Testing environment and tools

• Task scenarios and testing scripts

• Data collection methods

This section is primarily for designers or those with technical skills. Put it near the end of the document, for example, the appendix, to make it easily accessible without overshadowing the insights.

Keep the following tips in mind as you write your suggestions:

Be specific

Design and development teams need to know exactly what and where the problem is. Try not to be vague. Document exactly where users struggled and what they found confusing. Include screenshots, timestamps, video reels, user quotes, and any other data that might help illustrate the problem.

Don’t blame the user

Your team won’t have any work to do if you blame the user for issues with your product.

Instead of saying, “Users didn’t understand how to use the feature,” explain that the feature’s purpose and functionality were not clearly communicated. This promotes a solutions-oriented approach to improving the user experience.

Look for the bigger picture

Consider how individual findings can be extrapolated to similar features or future development, and connect individual findings to broader UX principles and patterns.

This approach will enable stakeholders to understand wider implications and help teams make better design decisions across the product.

Help identify solutions

Usability testing provides a wealth of data for developing potential solutions. Include those in your report to save the development team time. Discuss the following:

• User feedback and suggestions

• Industry best practices

• Successful patterns from similar products

• Technical and resource constraints

• Business requirements

Organize and rank findings

Your report should do the initial work of organizing and ranking issues. These initial priorities may change as the development process adds more data (for example, about the difficulty or expense of a given change), but this baseline allows the development team to get started quickly.

1. Task completion questions: test how well users can complete specific actions

2. Comprehension questions: evaluate how well users understand content and interface elements

3. Preference questions: provide feedback on design alternatives and user preferences

4. Satisfaction questions: assess a user’s overall experience and emotional response

1. Exploratory testing: conducted in the early phases to evaluate concept effectiveness and user needs

2. Assessment testing: used to evaluate the usability of an existing design by identifying specific usability issues

3. Validation testing: the final testing before release that verifies the product meets usability standards and requirements

4. Comparative usability testing: a form of A/B testing that compares two or more designs to determine which performs better