Designed for Use, 2nd Edition

Different Types of Tests

If you’re testing a paper prototype, you’re quite restricted in how you can run usability tests. The nature of a paper prototype pretty much dictates how you test it. Usability tests with actual running code are more forgiving, and there are different schools of thought on how they should be run. I’ll roughly group them into three different types of tests: moderated tasks tests, unmoderated tasks tests, and free-form tests.

Since the type of test determines how you prepare for it, I’ll introduce the different types of tests now and explain how to run each test later.

Moderated Tasks Tests

In a moderated tasks test, a facilitator moderates the tests and introduces the testers to different activities or tasks. The moderator ...