Usability Debt: How to Calculate & Pay It Down
Learn how to calculate usability debt with ux research, usability testing methods, and heuristic evaluation. Discover practical steps to pay it down for better user experience testing.
How to Make Usability Debt Visible
When developers take design shortcuts, don't use usability testing methods, or forget to do heuristic evaluations, they accumulate a kind of silent usability debt. Like the technical debt found within software code, this debilitating force that erodes user trust, makes it slower to take off and leads directly to higher support costs.
Not listening to user insights or bothering to regularly test and refine your website usability means that users will be more likely to bounce or complain. It's harder for them to follow guidelines but even when they do it's nearly impossible for people who arrive at an arbitrary place in any process-all because measuring and addressing usability debt early on brings about sustainable growth of the overall enterprise and ensures better product outcomes.
What Is Usability Debt
Usability debt is about falling short of user expectations because you haven't done enough ux research, or you've lost focus when doing user experience testing. Just look at these examples: outof-date navigation, UI elements vary widely in design from page to page and there's no consistency to those 'little touches,' error feedback is conspicuously absent throughout the site, and all accessibility checks go by the board.
Although usability shortcuts might get more code out faster, they develop hidden costs which manifest themselves as poor user behavior analysis, increased customer complaints and greatly diminished retention.
Key Sources of Usability Debt
Lack of usability testing tools during product launches
Ignoring results from website feedback or remote usability testing
Skipping usability test script preparation
Poor balance between usability vs accessibility requirements
Rushed rollouts without a usability testing checklist
How to Calculate Usability Debt
The calculation of usability debt involves both qualitative and quantitative measures:
Heuristic evaluation to identify major usability flaws
Usability testing examples to measure real user struggles
Tracking unresolved website usability testing issues across releases
Scoring issues with a usability testing checklist to rank impact
Sample Usability Debt Scoring Table
Issue Type | Source of Detection | Impact Score | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
Confusing navigation | Heuristic evaluation | High | Critical |
Slow form completion | User experience testing | Medium | High |
Missing error messages | Remote usability testing | High | High |
Low color contrast | Website feedback | Medium | Medium |
Unclear button labels | Usability testing tools | Low | Low |
Strategies to Pay Down Usability Debt
To pay down usability debt effectively, use structured ux research and test continuously. Practical methods include:
Remote usability testing, which allows you to capture real-world contexts that are relevant to your products
Go back over flows using user testing tools in order for them to show up more quickly
Write more useful usability test scripts, standardizing your studies
Combining user insights with analytics so you know which problems to focus on
Regular usability vs accessibility audits for inclusive design
Conclusion
Every method of usability testing or user experience research that is not followed today will be a much bigger pill to swallow tomorrow. The best way of tracking and repaying usability debt before you get hurt by it in the long term, is through combining ux research and heuristic evaluation with regular website usability testing. Our next chapter, this last one in practice, gives you some guidelines.
A disciplined approach-in practice the hallmark of user behavior analysis, usability test scripts (test scripts for users to follow that organize how they will use the system before beginning in a scientific study), and a clear usability testing checklist-guarantees long-term efficiency; stronger retention; an experience for users that they can have faith in?
