How can you design a usability test for a product or service in the conceptual stage?

Usability testing is effective when you set your goal. You should focus on solving one problem rather than gathering general feedback. If you don't go with this advice, the generic data that you receive may walk you away from your main problem. So be focused and create a strategy around one user scenario or feature for your usability testing.

I just share what i've learnt from my experience, Testing the usability of product designs is crucial to ensure they meet user needs and expectations. There are several methods and tools available to conduct usability testing: let's first discuss about usability testing methods: there are few proven methods for testing you can choose according to your preference, needs,time and budget. 1. Moderated User Testing 2. Remote User Testing 3. Think-Aloud Protocol 4. Surveys and Questionnaires 5. A/B Testing

What would your strategy be to confirm your concept idea? Will it be a moderated 1 on 1 session, survey, or card sorting? Depending on what method you're going to use, your results may vary. Your testers may have different answers for each research method, so select them wisely.

Finding the right people for your user testing is challenging sometimes. If your client or company doesn't want to provide you with their customers or use paid research tools, it's your turn. Find relevant people for your user testing and conduct research yourself. Luckily you don't need to have too many people for your user testing. If you can find 5-7 people with relevant pain points, it would be enough.

If you’re conducting remote usability test as some of your interviewees are overseas, please make sure you clear with your legal / data protection officer on the tool that you’re using. I.e if it records and stores the video, IP address - it may go against data protection laws. If incentives are given, prepare a ‘Receipt of incentives’ form as well. This prevents any “he-said, she-said” scenarios on whether an incentive had been received or not

I always prepare a user flow, user scenario, and additional questions for each usability test I conduct. This is because I want to be confident and productive during communication with my testers. I don't want them to feel any misunderstanding. A great preparation makes you more confident productive and a more pleasant communicator.

I usually work with moderated user testing because it's a big time saver for me. I love to set everything up widely so that the user testing process is automated fully. The data I receive is full of valuable information for me because of the additional questions that transform my data to an even more concrete level.

Always do a trial run before the actual usability test. Try it with an android vs iOS, windows vs Macintosh user - most of the time, they present different set of challenges and you need to be familiar when it comes to troubleshooting. If not, the set up a may derail and take up precious time from the actual test