11 October 2012

Check list for usability testing

Usability Testing :

It is the extent to which a particular application can be used effectively and without much difficulty.
             Usability testing is done from the users point of view. This testing type makes an attempt to describe the “look and feel” and usage features or usage aspects of a product. Many types of testing are objective in nature. Many people disagrees that usability testing really belongs to The Software Testing domain.


Usability testing forms a part of non functional testing.

Benefits:

1. Increased productivity
2. Speed of work
3. Ease of using
4. Customer support reduced
5. Decreased Training costs
6. Increased customer satisfaction
7. Increased market life

Check List:

1. Page look and feel should be consistent (on all pages)
2. All controls should fit in the screen size
3. All controls should be visible in the screen
4. All Controls should be clearly aligned in the screen
5. All labels should be clear for vision
6. All labels should be readable
7. Windows tool bar support should be there
8. Fonts/Font size used in the screen should be consistent across the page
9. Colors used in the page should be consistent
10. Ability for the user to maximize, minimize, restore and close the windows using those buttons
11. Window cascading should exists
12. Ability to maximize and minimize via page header bar
13. There should be tool tip for each control
14. There should be support for key board inputs (mouse disconnected and not disconnected)
15. Support for short cut keys
16. Check if ‘Tab’ is working proper for cursor movement
17. Cursor focus over different controls should be appropriate (ie. Cursor focus should move from 1st control to 2nd control and so on when tab key is used)
18. Tool tips should be there
19. Tool tips should be clear to user to understand
20. Scroll bars (horizontal, vertical, any internal scroll bars) should work properly
21. Scroll bars should appear when page is minimized
22. Scroll bars should appear when the controls out reach the page size
23. All the content should fit in the page and should be visible when the window is resized
24. Any part of the data including data in the sub sections should not go invisible when window resizes
25. Drop downs should have scroll bar when content is out of the visible region
26. Drop down values should appear sorted properly
27. Scroll bar should appear for text boxes when content is long
28. Combo boxes should be flexible enough to display long values (automatically resizes based on the size of the content)
29. User should be able to edit the text
30. Cut, copy and paste functionality should work
31. Should be able to perform re do on most recent undo task
32. Undo, Redo functionality should exists
33. Search functionality in the page
34. All the links to other pages should work properly
35. Whenever the list is displayed it should get displayed in sorted format
36. Sort functionality should work and it should be correct
37. Mandatory fields should appear with proper indication
38. Alert message should be clear and understandable
39. Error messages should be understandable
40. Information should be placed relevantly in the page (ie. personal details in one section, account details in one section, credit details in one section…)
41. User should be allowed to see the data in the order in which he want (ie. Ascending or descending, date wise.....)