Jeff Sauro • May 15, 2012
Errors can be categorized as slips (like a typo) or a mistake (incorrect goal) and are common occurrences in usability tests. Errors are often caused by problems in an interface and lead to longer task times, higher task failure and lower satisfaction ratings. While errors can't be entirely eliminated, they can often be reduced substantially be reducing the opportunity for an error.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • May 9, 2012
Regardless of whether you're more on the research side or more on the design side of the User Experience, here are five skills that will make you more valuable and effective in your job.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • May 1, 2012
When it comes to testing websites there are many unmoderated and moderated solutions. But if you've ever tried to evaluate an app or website on a mobile phone or tablet there are fewer options. Here's our solution.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • April 24, 2012
Increasingly companies are adopting the Net Promoter Score as the corporate metric. All metrics, including user experience metrics should roll up to the Net Promoter Score. Here are 10 things to know about the Net Promoter Score if you're concerned about improving the user experience.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • April 17, 2012
One of the simplest ways to measure any event is a binary metric coded as a 1 or 0. It's at the heart of computing and plays a critical role in user research.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • April 17, 2012
Compare two independent proportions for A/B testing or comparing completion rates or conversion rates for small and large sample sizes. Uses the N-1 Two proportion test and Fisher Exact test to generate p-values.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • April 10, 2012
Despite the rise in unmoderated usability testing, the bulk of evaluations are still done with a facilitator. Whether you are sitting next to the user in a lab or sharing screens with someone thousands of miles away, here are 20 practical tips for your next moderated usability test.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • April 3, 2012
When you need a user-centered view of categories, labels or groups to improve findability, card sorting is the way to go. Here are at least 10 things you should know about this popular user research method.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • March 27, 2012
Standardized Usability Questionnaires offer the advantage of higher reliability, validity and sensitivity and some offer the advantage of a normalized database which allows you to compare a score to hundreds of others.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • March 21, 2012
Compute confidence intervals around continuous data using either raw or summary data.
[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • March 21, 2012
You don't need a PhD in statistics to understand and use confidence intervals. Here are 10 things to know to get you started using and interpreting confidence intervals for your next user research project.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • March 13, 2012
Rarely can we talk to all users in the population we're studying, instead we sample. Here are 7 S's to help in your sampling: Simple Random, Starbucks, Stratified, Snowball, Spot, Sequential and Serial sampling.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • March 7, 2012
Many of the reasons people don't use statistics with usability data are based on misconceptions about what you can and can't do with statistics and the advantage they provide in reducing uncertainly and clarifying recommendations. Here are nine of the more common misconceptions I've heard.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • February 29, 2012
After the successful webinar on Best Practices for Remote Usability Testing, we received many questions about how I performed the analysis: sample size questions, time on task and other logistic issues are covered.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • February 21, 2012
The right measure will: identify problem areas, track improvements over time, be meaningful to the customer. The wrong measure can: identify wrong areas of focus, miss problems all together, lead to unintended consequences and alienate customers. Finding the right measure means taking multiple measures and seeing which one best tracks other customer sentiments and revenue.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • February 14, 2012
There are more than five challenges facing UX professionals today, but here are five that tend to cross projects and products: Time, Costs, Tools & Techniques, Finding Representative Users and Deliverables. [Read More]
Jeff Sauro • February 7, 2012
An analysis of 4000 users across 59 websites found that when users fail to accomplish their goals, they are 5 times less likely to return to the website and 3 times more likely to tell their friends not to visit the website.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • January 31, 2012
An analysis of SUPR-Q data from users of popular social networking sites reveals users generally don't trust social networks. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ all fall within the bottom quintile of website trust. Facebook leads the pack with the highest Net Promoter Score and usability.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • January 24, 2012
The distinction between a qualitative study and quantitative study is a false dichotomy. It doesn't cost more money to quantify or use statistics. It just takes some training and confidence. Not only can qualitative data be categorized into quantities, but it can prompt further questions and discovery for usability improvement.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • January 17, 2012
There are advantages and disadvantages to the different usability testing methods: lab-based, remote moderated and remote unmoderated. A combination of methods provides a more comprehensive picture of the user experience but is not always possible. Consider these nine factors when deciding on a method.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • January 10, 2012
Despite UX being a field with wide ranging skills, the average salaries for individual contributors are about the same across job functions at about $85k and haven't changed much over two years.[Read More]
Guest Post By Jim Lewis • January 3, 2012
System Usability Scale (SUS) scores are often collected along with Net Promoter Scores in evaluations of software and website usability. An examination of 81 datasets from 2200 users shows that dividing SUS scores by 10 does a decent job of predicting the Net Promoter Score.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • December 27, 2011
Thank you to the 585k visitors and 1.3 Million page views on MeasuringUsability.com in 2011. Of the 52 articles written in 2011, in ascending order, here are the 15 most popular.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • December 20, 2011
Improving the user experience means starting with the right measure or measures to manage. Here are 10 of the more common ones I've written about in 2011.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • December 14, 2011
The only thing worse than users failing a task is users failing a task and thinking they've completed it successfully. This is a disaster. Disasters can be tracked by measuring task completion rates and task-level confidence. Data from 174 tasks show the likely prevalence of disasters in consumer software and websites.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • December 7, 2011
What sample size do i need? It's usually the first and most difficult question to answer when planning a usability evaluation. There are actually good ways for estimating the sample size that don't rely on intuition, dogma or conventions.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • November 30, 2011
There isn't a usability thermometer to tell you how usable your software or website is. Instead we rely on the impact of good and bad usability to assess the quality of the user experience. Assessing that impact starts by knowing and collecting these 10 metrics.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • November 22, 2011
The reported number of UX professionals in both small and large organizations has increased between 20% and 30% over the last two years. This can be attributed to both an increase in actual UX professionals and a broadening of the jobs that fall under the UX umbrella.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • November 15, 2011
For as long as there have been websites it seems that there's been a call to reduce the number of clicks to improve the user experience. An analysis of click counts and task times across 3 eCommerce website usability tests and 1200 users found that clicks and time have a correlation of .5. Clicks predict around 25% of task time, meaning it's better to directly measure or estimate task times than click counts when improving website efficiency.[Read More]
Jeff Sauro • November 8, 2011
There are many great methods for gathering insights from users and many more software tools. Here are the tools and services I use when conducting user research.[Read More]
Showing the latest 30 posts. Show All 162 Blog Posts
Jeff Sauro is the founding principal of Measuring Usability LLC, a company providing statistics and usability consulting to
Fortune 1000 companies.
He is the author of over
15 journal articles and 3 books on statistics and the user-experience.
More about Jeff...
Measuring Errors in the User Experience
5 Valuable Skills for UX Professionals
How to Conduct a Usability test on a Mobile Device
10 Things to Know about Net Promoter Scores and the User Experience
8 Ways to Show Design Changes Improved the User Experience
Why you only need to test with five users (explained)
Confidence Interval Calculator for a Completion Rate
How common are usability problems?
97 Things to Know about Usability
Top 10 Research-Based Usability Findings of 2010
What five users can tell you that 5000 cannot
Does better usability increase customer loyalty?
Should you use 5 or 7 point scales?
25 Resources for Measuring Usability
The Five Most Influential Papers in Usability
 | Quantifying the User Experience: Practical Statistics for User Research The most comprehensive statistical resource for UX Professions (JUST RELEASED) Buy on Amazon |
 | Excel & R Companion to Quantifying the User Experience Detailed Steps to Solve over 100 Examples and Exercises in the Excel Calculator and R Buy on Amazon | Download |
 | A Practical Guide to the System Usability Scale Background, Benchmarks & Best Practices for the most popular usability questionnaire Buy on Amazon | Download |
 | A Practical Guide to Measuring Usability 72 Answers to the Most Common Questions about Quantifying the Usability of Websites and Software Buy on Amazon | Download |