Balancing Functional and Usability Testing for User Satisfaction

QA teams seek to balance testing techniques for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness. The goal is to test an application as thoroughly as possible, even as they rarely have enough time or resources to completely handle the job.

How can teams strike a balance with testing and still deliver quality applications that customers love? One way is to test using a wide variety of techniques, focusing on usability and functionality. 

Usability testing really has two meanings. Formal usability testing means inviting customers to test and provide input on a new application or features before the official release. Customers receive test scripts, and the team observes them to see where they run into problems. Alternatively, usability testing can involve tasking an external or internal team to test an application to ensure identified customer workflows perform as expected. Many organizations tack on usability testing to internal QA testing teams’ workloads because of the difficulty or expense involved with the formal approach. Even worse, some application providers attempt to avoid customer issues until after a release. 

Many internal QA teams try to test usability and functionality simultaneously. The problem with this approach, however, is most testers are trying to step into a generalized customer’s shoes. Yet many customer workflows are unique to a business type or role, which reduces the value of testing as a general customer.

Let’s look into options for creating the perfect balance between functional and usability testing to maximize value and optimize the user experience. 

Usability testing with a side of functionality

Finding the right testing balance between functional and usability testing empowers user-centric test principles. With user-centric testing, the customer’s needs rise above all else. This strategic testing approach skews the balance in favor of usability — with a side of functional testing. 

But it’s not all roses. The problem with over-emphasis on usability testing is some functional defects might slip through. Basic functional defects, for example, might appear as display issues in different browsers, devices or platforms. Basic functional testing is still necessary to prove the application fulfills its design and purpose on multiple systems.

Ebook

Functional testing confirms the application contractually meets user requirements and performs the expected tasks. Testers take functional requirements from user stories or specifications to develop tests that step through all functions within an application.

As a general example, let’s say an application calculates federal taxes. Testers must verify users can enter financial data and receive the correct tax payment calculation. The testing team creates functional tests to cover printing forms, submitting forms and then submitting a payment. Functional tests must include notifications via SMS or email. Confirm users receive feedback or confirmation of payment.

Functional testing often results in the development of numerous tests that cover all application features. It can result in the creation of thousands of functional test cases that grow with changes to the application. 

Functional test types typically include, among others: 

• smoke or sanity tests
• black box tests
• integration tests
• unit tests
• UAT (user acceptance tests)

When creating a user-centric test approach, balance testing evenly between verifying functional requirements and ensuring a usable application for the greatest number of customers. Every customer will be different. Determine a testing path to cover the needs of most customers to balance usability and functional accuracy. 

Benefits of balancing usability and functional testing

To gain the greatest benefits from balancing functional and usability testing, testing teams must define the meaning of each as it relates to the customer base. Teams might use personas to represent customers or create specific customer test cases based on known customer workflows. Next, get creative. Come up with options to accomplish both sufficient functional and usability testing within the established sprint or release cycle.

Teams have options for executing both functional and usability testing simultaneously. Crowdtesting teams are an efficient and effective way to strike a balance in testing strategy. A crowdtesting team represents real users interacting with the application without prejudice, bias or the influence of corporate or team politics. 

Crowdtesting solutions, such as those offered by Applause, open up some unique possibilities that enable your team to expand test coverage. The crowdtesting team can, for example, handle usability testing with real in-market customers while the internal team conducts functional testing. Or, the crowdtesting team can cover functional gaps in devices and environments while the internal team manages usability. Think creatively — you can mix and match crowdtesting and internal test teams to meet your needs.

Another option is to use two separate crowdtesting teams, each highly specialized and strategically geared toward gaps in your functional and usability testing strategies.

When time and resources are short, it might be best to divide and conquer to create balance. Consider if usability testing needs to be executed during every sprint, or whether an external team can be assembled every month or quarter for a thorough usability test. Perhaps a crowdtesting team fits best running usability tests in the middle of the SDLC process? Identifying issues early reduces costs and improves development team productivity. 

Teams may also use exploratory testing methods with personas or detailed customer-created test scripts for testing. Teams might also leverage customer support personnel to help create tests to represent blocks of customers that use the same configuration settings or features. 

Providing maximum customer value 

When creating an approach, remember to consider the business value for both the testing team and the customer base. Successful applications make diverse groups of customers happy because they can accomplish a goal or purpose without unnecessary hassle. From a business perspective, customers stay loyal to applications when ongoing releases continue to function as expected, enabling them to get work done efficiently.

Organizations and testing teams have options when creating an effective balance between functional and usability testing. In the end, it comes down to driving value for the customer and the business — crowdtesting through a provider like Applause can be a powerful and valuable option.

Teams can divide and conquer by leveraging crowdtesting teams, ultimately saving time and resources. A crowdtesting team can run tests anywhere in the SDLC to help identify defects from planning through release. Through crowdtesting, the development team can reap the benefits of continuous testing while an internal team focuses on testing new features or other testing types like integration, data and back-end processes or systems. 

Additional advantages of using crowdtesting teams include: 

• diverse test environments
• real-world user testing
• flexibility and scalability
• lower testing costs
• reduced management needs

Reach out to Applause to discuss your functional and usability testing needs today.