Missing Features

The need for usability testing in consumer products cannot be overstated. But even if it doesn’t have an electrical plug, it still probably needs usability testing.

In fact, here is a really easy (and free!) test for all of the product managers out there to determine if your paycheck product needs a usability test:

Is your product used by humans?

If you answered yes, then you need to be running usability tests. If you answered no, then you aren’t selling a product, so you aren’t really a company.

Is it that easy to tell?

Let’s look at a great example of a consumer product usability mistake that could have been easily caught with some user testing. Take an item from a recent Crate and Barrel catalog, the bamboo tea holder:

Looks perfectly functional, except it isn’t.

When you put a common brand of tea in this holder, it doesn’t close:

Crate and Barrel must spend millions of dollars on marketing and product development, and yet a simple usability test costing about $100 wasn’t performed. Instead, Crate and Barrel chose to sell an inferior product to consumers who might start to question the quality of the entire product line.

If you sell products to consumers then you need your customers. Spending $100 is lot a cheaper than losing even one customer.

Missing features axiom #6: Test it or forget it.

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