Over the last 3-4 years, the UX (user experience) industry has begun focusing more heavily on user testing instead of using the traditional expert reviews and consulting services of the past. But why is this, and should you do away with expert reviews or still use them? What’s the difference between user testing and UX reviews? Continue reading to learn more so you can use the best strategies for ensuring your websites and apps provide the highest quality user experience.
The Benefits of User Experience (UX) Reviews
Expert reviews aren’t considered an equal substitute that can replace usability or user testing. Instead, they’re a great alternative to usability tests when you can’t conduct them or afford them. Expert reviews can also be the appropriate decision when you find it difficult to find users that can perform user tests, as well as when you can’t cover the cost. So while it’s best to conduct both UX reviews and user tests, UX reviews are the better way to go when you have to choose one of the two options.
An expert review will evaluate your site or app and focus on whether or not the product can assist in building a relationship with users, whether it encourages users to remain on the website or app, whether it upsells or onsells effectively, and whether it complements or supports other channels. And an expert review will typically find roughly 30 per cent of the issues that aren’t found in usability tests, so it can be more comprehensive and useful.
The Benefits of User Testing
Despite the many reasons to conduct UX reviews, there are still many reasons to also employ user testing for your site or app as well.
For example, you can save money on support costs, development, and redesign efforts while getting quality feedback on how to improve the interactive experience of your users. And user testing measures behaviour rather than preference, so you can focus on the features that truly matter and can help you gain a competitive advantage.
On top of all of that, user testing can help you identify problems in the product’s information architecture, as well as help you maximise conversion rates by identifying shopping behaviours.
Don’t Skimp on UX Reviews
Ultimately, if you don’t allow a UX expert to review your website or app before you launch it, you’ll be missing out on advice that could mean the difference between your success and failure. You may end up wasting your valuable time and money by performing user testing because your product would likely fail things like accessibility guidelines, usability guidelines, industry standards, best practices, current trends, and more. But by hiring a user experience expert and designer, such as those at Goby Savvy, you could avoid missing these important aspects of the user experience and ensure that your product is the best it can be.
Now that you know the differences between UX reviews and user testing, as well as the benefits of both, you can make the best decisions for your website and app while promoting products that people will love to use.
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