All You Need to Know About UI/UX Testing

The success of any software product highly depends on its UI and UX. In simple words, UI testing covers the interface of the software product. It mainly ensures that the product is functioning according to expectations. On the other hand, UX which stands for user experience covers the overall experience that customers will deal with. That’s why every QA developer and tester must have significant knowledge in this field.

This blog is here to help you understand the difference between the two. Hence, you will be able to build a strong, intuitive, and best-quality software product. So, let’s start.

Why Are UI and UX Testing So Important?

The development department spent a significant time creating an amazing product with crucial features. It doesn’t matter if your product has several features or not, customers specifically remember the drawback. These drawbacks can be related to anything like crashes, errors, etc. Thus, it is essential to rectify these mistakes on time and errors to offer a smooth and interactive experience.

Automated or Manual UI and UX Testing- Which is Better?

You can do Manual or Automated Testing as per your requirement. As the name suggests, manual testing requires a trained expert human tester to verify the performance. Similarly, automated testing for UI and UX is done with specific tools. Automation testing significantly speeds up the completion of the testing process due to its automated nature.

User Interface- Let’s Discuss It

So, basically, the user interface means the interaction quality happening between the software and the user. This product can be anything, a mobile app or a website. Every product comprises specific elements such as icons, buttons, scrollbars, dropdowns, sliders, screen headers, input fields, search fields, drop-down menus, etc. Notably, here are some of the tools specifically built for UI testing.

• Page Ruler– This tool is an extension used for measuring the pixels of the webpage. The users can draw a ruler which has height, width, etc. comprising pixel metrics.

• What font– The main specification of this tool is that it immediately identifies the font. They need to upload the image and click on the font for identification and check the results.
• Visbug- Significantly, Visbug is a Google-based extension tool to change the layout of the web page. Along with that, you can also do various CSS edits through Visbug.

• ColorZilla– Most importantly, ColorZilla can be used with Mozilla and Google Chrome extensions. It is a color-picking tool that assists graphic designers and web developers. It allows them to get the color reading from anywhere in the browser and adjust it accordingly.

What are the things you need to check for UI Testing?

The following checklist will be a great advantage to cover everything for the UI Testing.

• Colors
• Error in Data Type
• Font Style and Size
• Icon Style
• Drop-down list
• Progress indicators
• On-screen instructions
• Required fields
• Visual Inconsistency
• Shortcuts
• Danger Signals
• Vague Visual Cues
• Action Affirmations (Delete, Change, Save)
• Icons Having Colors

UI testing checks how the product performs on the basis of the following criteria.

• Compatibility
• Simplicity
• Accessibility
• Reasonability and Consistency

User Experience- Let’s Discuss It

The user experience or UX denotes the whole experience that the user faces with the software. It mainly deals with the behavior, preferences, beliefs, emotions, etc. of the customers.

However, during the development of the website or application, errors can occur due to some mistakes. These mistakes prevent proper navigation for the users which affects the UX

Moreover, even if your website doesn’t stand apart from other websites, it still helps in gaining profit. It means that the website offers some unique features or a wide range of options. This leads to poor user experience. To avoid that, UX testing is highly crucial.

These are some of the automated tools which are used for UX Testing purposes.

• Sahi– It is a testing and automation tool mainly used for web applications. It provides the facility to record and play scripts.

• TestComplete– TestComplete is used for various applications for tasks like automating functional testing, back-end testing, etc.

• Crazy Egg– It is basically a service with heat maps to understand how visitors are interacting with the website.

• Sikuli– Significantly, Sikuli is an open-source automation tool for UX testing. It can take screenshots of the system and raise a query through that.

• Testomato– This tool offers a smart monitoring service to check the functionality of the website. Also, it immediately alerts the user if anything goes out of its way.

• Zurb– The Zurb is a tool to know if the users like web design or not. It also helps developers and testers to know which fragment has a memorable impact.

• BrowserShots– It is a web service that allows developers to take screenshots of the site across various browsers and operating systems.

• Optimizely– It allows you to specify the specific conditions under which the registration, income, downloads, as well as content, rise.

• UXPunk– This tool helps understand the best ranking of the website content.

Just like UI testing, here are some of the important functions and factors that expert testers examine.

• Color, size, and clickability of the footer and header buttons
• Content formatting
• Overall navigation of the site
• Viewing the mobile in portrait and landscape mode if possible
• Extra elements
• Content, dimensions, clarity, and friendliness of the website are essential

UI and UX Similar or Different from Each Other?

Both UI and UX are equally important to scale any software product. They are not similar but don’t have much difference either. They serve the same purpose, i.e. to offer a smooth customer experience with improved interaction. Furthermore, UI is also considered an inseparable part of UX.

Why You Should Choose Automation for UI and UX Testing

Automation and manual processes both have their own benefits. But, why is automation so crucial? The below information can clarify your doubts.

• Transparency– The selenium testing for UI and UX testing incredibly helps in building reports to share with the team. Moreover, this can not happen with manual testing. Apparently, it takes much more time while working with manual testing to extract reports and other processes.

• Accuracy– Secondly, one of the main advantages of the automation process for UI and UX testing is the less error. Every test is written correctly which helps achieve the best accuracy at every step.

• Speed– Apart from everything, speed is unmatchable when it comes to automated testing. Time is one of the essential resources for every growing company. Any Qa tester can easily write the tests repeatedly without any hassle.

How do UI and UX Testing?

Planning is the key to conducting any test without any hindrance. Similarly, you need to be specific about your target for UI and UX Testing. These are the important three things that you need to follow for this task.

• Identifying the fragments that you need to test
• Creating the best team with talented and skilled people for testing
• Creating and performing the test
• Measuring the results and making significant changes
• Ensure that the test is realistic

Best Testing Methods for UI and UX Testing

Every type of UI and UX decision can be broken down into smaller fragments or layers. So, these are the top methods that are helpful in UI and UX Testing. It is also best for getting a deeper insight into customers’ choices.

#1- Value Surveys

It is still a debate if depending on the value survey is the right decision or not. If testers face a problem of time shortage, then this can be a great savior.

#2- Using the Problem Interview Method

This method is the foundation technique that works on solving a particular problem. However, it also ensures that experts work on the problem which users face. It also specifies those people and further validates the marketing channels.

#3- Feature Fake Method

There is no problem in making a new feature for an existing product. Significantly, it is a great method to know how customers will react to the new features. Will they try to use it or not? Hence, it becomes easier to decide whether to modify it further or not.

#4- Get Help from the Feedback Follow-Ups

Gathering customer feedback across several channels can help a lot. That’s why product teams across the world are emphasizing building strong relationships with customers. Also, it is efficient in strengthening the solutions for UI and UX designs. Additionally, users can identify these opportunities through feedback and retain their customers.

#5- Price Testing

Nowadays the method of price testing is evolving dynamically and personalized with the help of data intelligence. The AB testing of pricing is one of the simple ways. Complex tests target the user behavior to optimize the prices accordingly.

#6- Rollouts

If other processes for UI and UX Testing don’t work for you, then you can use the rollouts. Significantly, rollouts are best for testing if any software release carries risks. It is easy to implement as it requires some tools to manage the rollouts. This can be the testing tool for AB testing, Rollout.io., or LaunchDarkly.

#7- Blind Product Tests

This particular test is beneficial to know the differentiating factor of the service or product. Learning the different attitudes of a wide range of customers as per the products will help in evaluating the necessary changes in the software. Apart from that, it becomes easier to understand the usability of the competitor’s products.

#8- Multivariate and AB Tests

AB testing is a highly common method used for testing the products for the market. And the multivariate tests are done with various variables in diverse combinations. This technique is efficient in taking the right decision and optimizing the product accordingly.

#9- Testing the Landing Page

Product teasing is one of the highly recognized Startup tactics adopted by Tesla, Dropbox, etc. With the landing page, email campaigns, video, etc. experts can put the value proposition. For that, you have to ask for the contact information of the customers. To do this, it is essential to make a marketing plan to reach out to customers. Significantly, testing the landing page validates the marketing channels and the UI designs.

#10- Usability Testing Process

The majority of the time, people don’t tell you if they like the software or not. It is also tough to know if they will pay to enjoy the unique features. Hence, usability methods help to know if the customers are using the product. To make this happen, one must create a list of the critical tasks which people can use. Then, create the test plan and prototype and ask people to do the task without any guidance.

Notable Tips for UI and UX Testing

• There are various methods to do the task of UI and UX Testing such as A/B testing, survey, usability testing, etc.

• Define the goals before starting the test.

• Once you know what to test, then you can easily select a plan and method to execute the test.

Conclusion

The whole discussion sums up that UI and UX testing is an integral part of the development process. It allows you to catch the issues regarding user experience and save huge costs. Hence, you can easily build strong and best-quality software to target your customers.