Many companies choose not to spend money on usability testing. Oftentimes, the costs of formal usability testing at a facility with two way mirrors and recording equipment can be prohibitive. There are times when this very formal usability testing is absolutely necessary. At Flightpath, we have discovered that there is an alternative to spending big bucks on usability to settle key design issues. 

We all know that user-centered design that relies solely on the client's approval (or subjective opinion of what the users really want) will be less successful than a site that actively considered user feedback during design.

So what if the client is willing to pay for design but not usability testing to validate that design with the user? If you have a good user experience designer or information architect, testing can be done with wireframes via a webex session and a conference bridge with a user that meets the demographic profile of the website's target audience.  Our design team has learned valuable information about design, instructional copy, flow, and other unexpected details that only users can point out.

This kind of testing can be done for a fraction of the cost of going to an outside facility. Candidates for the test pool can be recommended by clients. Clients typically know people who meet their demographic footprint who are more than happy to participate in exchange for in-kind product, a simple gift card or even the satisfaction of knowing they've participated in a re-design for a favorite brand.

It is very possible to embed this kind of usability into the design costs of a typical project. This way, “Usability Testing” as a line item doesn’t have to be stricken for budgetary reasons. This protects the client from themselves by allowing the user to clarify what they expect; it can really take the guess work out of a website design without breaking the bank.