Quick wins: the five-second test

The five-second test is a straightforward way to gain insight into a user's first impressions and to see if the layout gives important elements the necessary prominence on the page. They're quick to run and, when carried out several times during the design process, they are an easy way to make iterative improvements.

We recently found a great lightweight testing application to perform these remotely - you simply upload a design mockup, and your test is produced at a URL to pass on to your test subjects.

After running a few tests, we wanted more customisation:

• Allowance for multiple design mockups, so a sequence of pages from a site can be tested at one time.
• A specific question for each mockup, to allow targeted testing on the tasks we want users to achieve.
• The ability to set the display time for each mockup, if the administrator thinks the task requires a little extra time.

So, to address these points, Torchbox Labs was convened to produce a solution in a lunch hour sprint. One team worked on the styling and frontend, and another team on the Django backend. A frantic hour of coding followed, with the end result being a useful addition to our testing tools.

We can create tests very easily, and distribute the URL to a group of subjects without needing to bring them in to the office. It's a great way to quickly get valuable feedback.

Ideally, this "guerilla" testing would be backed up with more rigorous testing but, following the common mantra "any testing is better than no testing", using even this simple tool can have an impact on the success of a design.