Usability testing with TMAP

In short, usability is about how effectively, efficiently and satisfactorily users can achieve their goals with your product. Whether it’s a customer filing a claim, a call center agent navigating a dashboard, or a clinician entering sensitive data, if the system frustrates them, they’ll find workarounds or stop using it altogether. That’s not just a UX problem, that’s a quality risk.

Why usability matters in software projects

In Agile teams, usability often gets mentioned, but rarely tested. Features get built and shipped, but few stop to ask: is this intuitive for the end user? Can they use it with confidence? And how many clicks does it really take to complete a task?

Poor usability leads to poor adoption. It increases training and support costs. It wastes time, causes user frustration, and can even hurt your business goals. On the other hand, good usability:

• boosts user satisfaction and product adoption

• lowers support costs and reduces user errors

• shortens onboarding and training time

• builds trust in the product and the team behind it

• increases the likelihood of repeat usage and success

In short: usability isn't a “nice to have”, it's an important quality attribute and key enabler of long-term software success.

How do you test usability in practice?

TMAP helps you test usability with a structured, scenario-based approach. It starts by asking the right questions: What are the real user goals? What tasks are essential? And how can you ensure the software supports those tasks with minimal friction?

When testing usability, look at things like:

• how quickly and accurately users complete key tasks

• whether terminology makes sense to non-technical users

• whether users can navigate the system without a manual

• how consistent the interface feels across screens and flows

• how users feel after interacting with the system

It’s important to gather this input not just from your internal team, but also from real users — especially those who aren’t already familiar with the system. Usability is something you build in, not something you patch later.

A familiar story: “But it made sense to us”

Developers often work with systems every day and think in terms of logic and structure. But what’s logical to you might not be for your users. Take a customer portal. Internally, you might group features under “Settings > Profile > Update details.” But your customer is just looking for “Change address.” If that link is buried or mislabeled, they give up — or worse, call support.

If you don’t test usability, these blind spots only come to light after the product goes live. With usability testing, you can catch and fix them earlier — and make smarter decisions for your users.

What will you learn in the Testlearning e-learning?

Our training, TMAP: Quality for Cross-Functional Teams, gives you practical tools to integrate usability into your testing strategy. You’ll learn how to write usability-focused test cases, work cross-functionally to improve design choices, and recognize usability risks before they become support tickets.

The course is designed for real-life software teams. Whether you're a tester, developer, product owner or business analyst — we help you look beyond functionality and into what truly makes software usable.

You can follow the course anytime, anywhere, and get started quickly with actionable content and examples you’ll recognize from your own work.

What you can do today

Take a look at the system you're working on right now. Would a new user find it intuitive? Are the words clear? Are the steps logical? Can users recover from mistakes without asking for help?

If you're unsure (or if you know it could be better ) now is the time to act. Build usability into your test strategy. And if you want to do that with TMAP? Start with our e-learning. Because usability doesn’t start after the go-live. It starts the moment you decide to build something for real people.