A product can pass every functional test, meet all its technical requirements and still leave users frustrated or confused.
Having worked in UX and digital product development for many years, I’ve seen how important it is to look beyond whether something technically works and understand whether it actually works for the people using it.
I’m curious about other people’s experiences.
Have you ever discovered a major usability issue in a product that was technically working perfectly?
How did your team identify the problem, and what happened next?
Do you think usability testing should be a bigger part of the QA process, or is it better handled separately by UX teams?
I’d love to hear some real-world examples, particularly where testers helped uncover problems that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.
it happened some time ago and the tested software was already old then: there were a number of consecutive dialogues that collected data the user had to enter into forms. If you entered a wrong number on one of the first pop up windows you had a problem several windows later and you couldn’t go back, you had to end the task. I don’t know if such a deadlock is s usability problem but it sure had impact on it!
It was found by manual testing only (by me).
To me usability testing is part of the QA process, an important one at that. An anybody who’s testing can contribute to it.
I have found many UX issues during functional testing. It might help that as QA I haven’t spent too much time with the change (planning, design, …) before I’m facing it. This creates a more user-like situation where I find out how it works now and how I feel about it. Did I find it confusing, complicated etc.
I mostly see UI/UX teams and mixing those two topics can result in a more design focused approach that is more about the next new cool thing in UIs than if users would like the change. Being too involved in the whole design process will also reduce the chance of disliking the result. The UX opinion is not an outside objective opinion anymore.
Quality is a responsibility for the whole team and that includes UX. We all represent different preferences and opinions that users might have.