Usability testing templates

Usability testing is a valuable tool in user experience (UX) research. It enables you to evaluate how well your product works by observing test users engaging with it.

Incorporating purposeful and methodical testing into your design process allows you to deliver an exceptional range of products. Usability testing provides the insight needed to create a consumer-centric product that meets your target market’s needs.

These usability templates will let you harness the power of usability testing and create a product your customers love to use.

User experience can make or break your digital product.

Conducting UX research allows you to build and deliver an intuitive website or app offering exceptional user experience. You can use it to incorporate user feedback into the product from the get-go and accelerate your time to market.

Usability testing is the process of evaluating a digital product’s functionality. You observe how real users interact with the product to determine how it helps them perform tasks and achieve their goals. It helps identify issues that users may encounter while using the product, such as confusion or difficulty when completing tasks.

During testing, participants are required to complete the typical tasks the product is designed to support. Researchers watch how users interact with the product and ask questions about their experience.

Product developers can then use this feedback to improve the product. They might change the product’s layout; design, add, or remove features; or simplify the user interface.

Improving usability results in a better user experience and increases the likelihood of people enjoying the product.

Usability testing templates provide a structured and standardized framework to help you improve user research and increase the quality and efficiency of testing.

Here are the best usability testing templates to help you streamline your testing and research process:

Template for usability testing

This usability testing template is designed for the Dovetail research and analysis platform. It provides a structured and organized framework for planning and conducting user research.

Fill out your objectives, select your preferred methods, and recruit your participants. The template includes all the essential considerations needed to help you conduct rigorous, effective, and efficient usability testing.

What it’s good for: individuals or teams that are new to user research or want a standardized framework to guide their progress. It’s ideal for when you want to improve the quality and rigor of your user research by following best practices.

What it’s not good for: people with extensive user research experience who have their preferred methods and processes or those who don’t use Dovetail.

Template for early prototype usability testing

UXPin’s usability testing kit is a good choice for early usability testing. The kit comprises a zip file with five templates that work on Apple Pages and Microsoft Word. Here are the templates included:

• Usability test checklist with a list of crucial tasks

• Consent form to obtain user permission for recording

• Customizable test script for your moderated tests

• Notes spreadsheet for recording observations

• Report template to help present and explain the methodology and results

What it’s good for: creating a detailed report covering your user testing strategy and results.

What it’s not good for: users who prefer online testing, as most of the documents support in-person moderation. You can use the notes spreadsheets for any testing.

Template for usability testing a new product

The Usability Testing Plan Template from Milanote is a good choice for planning a usability testing process for a new product. It covers vital elements, including setting goals and objectives, defining participant selection scenarios, data analysis, and reporting.

What it’s good for: this template allows you to create a visual plan complete with images, files, videos, and more while collaborating with your team.

What it’s not good for: it’s not ideal for complex or specialized usability testing projects requiring highly detailed planning and execution.

Template for testing mobile app usability

Maze’s template for testing mobile app usability is a comprehensive checklist to help you discover your users’ pain points and validate their expectations. It’s a good way to create and deliver a seamless user experience when creating an app.

What it’s good for: this template is ideal for checking user experience during the middle and end stages of the app development process.

What it’s not good for: usability testing an app that has already been released. This template is designed for prototype testing only.

Template for testing feature discovery

Maze’s feature discoverability template is the best way to conduct usability tests focused on discovering and evaluating new features for a product or service.

The template requires users to complete tasks and provide feedback on the new feature. It includes a pre-test survey to gather participants’ demographic information and document their experience with the product.

A post-test survey helps you gather additional feedback and suggestions.

What it’s good for: this template by Maze is a great way to understand how users interact with new features, identify areas for improvement, and gather feedback for product development.

What it’s not good for: the template offers limited metrics, scope, and customization. It may require additional customization or integration with other tools to fulfill specific needs.

Template for testing the usability of a website signup flow

The website signup flow test template by UsabilityHub is a customizable template for testing the usability of website signup flows.

It comprises pre-built tasks and questions to help you set the test, define the scope, select participants, design tasks and questions, and analyze the results. You can customize the rating scales and survey questions to suit your needs.

What it’s good for: the template is ideal for evaluating the efficiency of the signup process. It can help you identify any usability issues that prevent users from signing up successfully. Overall, it provides valuable insights to help you improve the signup process.

What it’s not good for: not ideal for testing anything other than website signup flows. It also requires a paid UsabilityHub subscription to use, so this option isn’t suitable for those looking for a free template.

Template for testing the usability of product features

The test feature usability template from Maze is a valuable tool for testing specific product features and identifying areas for improvement. With this template, you can test your product’s intuitiveness and fix any issues before launch. Users can test various features and provide a usability score for each.

Overall, the template allows you to collect qualitative feedback and create a valuable, consumer-centric product.

What it’s good for: the template is good for identifying a product’s most critical features so that you can ensure they work seamlessly and flawlessly.

What it’s not good for: the template’s limited focus and flexibility prevent you from applying it in specific contexts. It also relies heavily on user feedback, which may be misleading and have more to do with the Maze test experience than your own app. This template may also lead to user fatigue.

Template for system usability scale testing

The system usability scale template from Mural is perfect for system usability scale testing. It provides a questionnaire and scoring system to help you measure your application’s usability.

You can use this template to define goals, create questionnaires, and interpret usability testing results.

The template is a digital version of a system usability scale (SUS) and is designed to support remote usability testing.

What it’s good for: this template helps you create a user-friendly and efficient product by enabling you to gather facts and user feedback about the product’s design.

What it’s not good for: while this template is a good measure of usability, it doesn’t provide specific feedback on design problems or user difficulties. You can’t use it to identify specific areas that need improvement.

Template for system usability scale response analysis

Dovetail’s tag board for analyzing system usability scale responses can help you analyze and interpret data from a SUS questionnaire. Use it to calculate the SUS score, create a SUS response distribution, and evaluate your system’s strengths and weaknesses.

By streamlining the analysis process and facilitating collaboration across different teams and projects, this template can save you time.

What it’s good for: this template helps you standardize SUS data analysis and interpretation when evaluating the system’s usability.

What it’s not good for: it’s not a substitute for comprehensive usability testing, as it doesn’t capture the nuances of how users interact with the product.

Template for a single ease question test

The single ease question template by Maze helps researchers capture how a user feels about their experience of completing a usability task. It comprises a single question: on a scale of 1–7, with one being “very difficult” and seven being “very easy,” how would the user rate the ease of completing a task?

What it’s good for: a single ease question test eliminates confusion and bias when capturing how a user feels about a product or feature. It’s also ideal for when you want to capture user feedback but you are short on time and resources.

What it’s not good for: this test can’t replace a more comprehensive user testing method. It’s often used alongside other testing methods.

Template for a usability survey

Process Street’s usability testing template covers all usability testing processes from planning to post-planning analysis.

It’s a customizable checklist that can help you create a test plan, prepare for the event, and follow best practices, including getting a signed consent form.

What it’s good for: this template can help you create a custom and comprehensive checklist when launching a usability study.

What it’s not good for: although the template is highly customizable, adapting to your specific testing needs requires time and effort.

Template for usability test reporting

The usability testing report template from Usability.gov is an MS Word document designed to help researchers and designers organize and present findings from their usability testing.

The template contains detailed instructions and examples to help you produce a customizable professional-grade usability report.

What it’s good for: researchers and designers looking for a structured framework for presenting usability testing data to stakeholders.

What it’s not good for: this template might not be suitable if you don’t have access to MS word or you are looking to create a less structured report. 

Template for usability testing analysis

This template from Dovetail allows for seamless usability testing analysis. Use it to extract actionable findings from your raw usability data.

You can upload and transcribe user interviews and highlight and categorize key moments with custom tags. Discover underlying patterns and data-backed insights and share them with your team.

What it’s good for: simplifying the data analysis process through interview transcription. This enables you to generate data-backed insights. The template also facilitates team collaboration and features helpful suggestions and resources for beginners.

What it’s not good for: it’s not possible to gain insights from specific product features when using this template. 

Template for analyzing unmoderated usability results

This Dovetail template enables you to analyze unmoderated usability results from Maze when integrated with Maze’s test feature usability template.

Use Maze to capture feedback, then import the data into Dovetail for analysis. With this template, you can discover patterns and create actionable insights to help you improve product usability.

What it’s good for: the template integrates with Maze to help you capture and analyze your responses for detailed and usable insights.

What it’s not good for: it’s not ideal for beginners who are unfamiliar with Maze as there may be a steep learning curve.

Usability testing has three primary goals:

1. Discover problems

2. Compare against benchmarks

3. Compare against other products and features

Usability testing has four principles:

1. Test product intuitiveness

2. Determine how well a product works

3. Gauge customer experience

4. Identify potential issues and rank their severity

A usable product has five usability factors:

1. Efficiency

2. Effectiveness

3. Engagement

4. Ease of learning

5. Error tolerance