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Usability

Guidelines for measuring the user experience

Think Aloud

Overview

During Think Aloud users will try to complete typical tasks while observers watch, listen, and takes notes. Observers should assure participants that they are not being tested. It needs to be made clear to participants that they are helping to test a prototype or website. The goal of Think Aloud is to identify any usability problems, collect quantitative data on a participant's performance, and determine a participant's satisfaction with a product. Think Aloud will help researchers identify changes required to improve user performance. Testing should be conducted early and often because it allows design and development teams to identify problems before they get coded. The earlier that problems are found and fixed, the less expensive fixes are. The benefits of conducting a Think Aloud study are that it is low-cost, robust, flexible, and easy to learn. Some of the drawbacks are that there is no standard of measure, users are conscious that they are being tested, and users do not always behave naturally. 

Think Aloud Videos