Creating a Testing Plan
Quick Tip!
Become familiar with the project before starting a testing plan. Talk to the JPM, team members, and staff to best understand the project goals and deliverables.
There are two forms of testing plans that must be conducted prior to handing over the project to a client: quality assurance testing and usability testing. Quality assurance testing examines the functionality, page-by-page or screen-by-screen, and usability testing evaluates the ease of use. These tests ensure that the projects function properly and have a layout, navigation, and design that are user-friendly.
Quality Assurance Testing
Quality assurance tests should be done throughout the development of any system by developers, designers, and UXers. It is important to consistently test the functionality of all clickable, scrollable, visual, and readable content on the system. The best way to capture the result of this testing is with Google Sheets. In order to create this plan, review the system page-by-page or screen-by-screen and note anything that a user could interact with or view and add it to the Google Sheet. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Default state of a page/screen
- Relevant state changes
- Animations or transitions
- Navigation and flow
- Different screens
- Devices and browsers
- User input fields and related messages
- Other visual or functional aspect of the system
Usability Testing
Usability testing should be conducted at multiple stages of a project. Use the full suite of testing outlined in the plan at the end, but conduct incremental testing throughout the project process. After downloading the usability plan template, remove all boilerplate text and replace with text that addresses the specific requirements and objectives for the project. Once completed, the report will be added at the end of this document. When creating this plan, consider the following:
- Project description or outline: describe the current or proposed website/app/experience.
- Testing goals: primary purposes of this testing.
- Participants that will test the system: who they are and their relationship to the project, if any.
- A pre-test questionnaire: get to know the participant. At the Digital Corps, this helps determine whether the participant has worked on the project in any capacity.
- Tasks for testing: describe a scenario that relate to the project and how it would be used in a normal setting. Tasks should be actionable, realistic, and avoid giving away clues (this includes using the same language for labels, links, and sections of the system).
- A post-test questionnaire: a way to gather quantitative metrics from the test (i.e., system usability scale, task difficulty rating, lostness index). Include additional follow-up questions for qualitative data.
- A script: word-by-word script of what will be said to each participant. The same wording and information prevents bias or skewed results with the testing. In the script, be friendly. Encourage the participants to explain their thought processes and remind them that the system is being tested, not them.
- The procedure: chronologically describe the steps of testing, but do not include the prep work.
Once the plan is complete, send it through the approval process:
- JPM
- PM
- UX Team Lead
- Brandon
Once approved, you may schedule participants to begin the testing. For more on usability testing, read the related articles.
