During our Design Phase, Team Spirit can evaluate the usability of your digital product through the following usability evaluation activities:

• expert design review—Team Spirit performs a comprehensive expert design review of your conceptual models, wireframes, storyboards, specifications, or prototypes to quickly assess the degree to your digital product is usable, identifies areas for improvement, and provides our recommendations for solving your product’s usability problems.
• usability testing—Team Spirit subjects a prototype of your digital product to usability testing to ascertain how well it meets the needs of your target users and the degree to which it is usable, identifies the prototype’s usability problems, and provides our recommendations for solving any usability problems that we identify.

Expert Design Review

Team Spirit reviews and analyzes your digital product’s conceptual models, wireframes, storyboards, specifications, or prototypes to quickly

• identify its user experience design challenges and usability problems
• determine how well your product meets user requirements
• analyze its strengths and weaknesses
• provide our design recommendations for solving any usability problems that we identify

To ensure that we capture our initial impressions and have maximal objectivity, our expert design review should ideally take place before Team Spirit becomes involved in the design of your digital product. Alternatively, a member of our team who has not previously been involved in the design of your digital product can perform an expert design review.

During our expert design review, Team Spirit evaluates your digital product’s workflows and the ease with which users can perform their tasks using your product. For a Web site or other digital information product, our expert design review also assesses its information architecture, how easy it is for users to find the information they need, and the clarity and aesthetic quality with which it presents information.

In our Usability Evaluation and Recommendations Report, Team Spirit provides a detailed evaluation of your digital product’s usability. Our report identifies which of your digital product’s features need improvement and makes design recommendations for meeting your product’s user experience design challenges, solving the usability problems that we have identified, and optimizing its user experience.

Team Spirit presents our usability evaluation and recommendations to your product team, then works with your team to determine which recommendations the next release of your product should address.

Usability Testing

During our Design Phase, Team Spirit performs one or more rounds of usability testing on a prototype of your digital product to

• determine whether test participants can successfully use the prototype to
• complete key tasks
• find important information
• identify its usability problems

Iterative cycles of design, prototyping, and usability testing enable Team Spirit to quickly refine our designs and solve any usability problems. We ask usability test participants to think aloud as they work. Members of your product team are always welcome to observe the usability test sessions.

At the conclusion of each round of usability testing, Team Spirit produces a detailed Usability Test Results and Recommendations Report that describes the outcome of our usability tests and any usability problems that we have identified and provides our design recommendations for their resolution. Team Spirit presents our findings and recommendations to your product team, then works with your product team to determine which usability problems the next release of your product should address.

Usability Testing During Conceptual Modeling

During or following conceptual modeling and information architecture, Team Spirit typically performs one or more rounds of usability testing on paper or interactive low- to medium-fidelity prototypes of alternative design concepts. By conducting usability testing at this early stage and discovering usability problems before your development team has expended a lot of effort on implementation, Team Spirit can improve the usability of your digital product, reduce your project’s level of risk, lower development costs, and improve your return on investment.

Usability Testing During Design and Specification

During or following user experience design and specification, Team Spirit typically performs one or more rounds of usability testing on either interactive wireframes or an interactive prototype of your digital product. Every round of usability testing that Team Spirit performs helps us to refine the design of your product, improve your product’s usability, and helps ensure the success of your product in the marketplace.