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UX industry leader Jakob Nielsen has advocated using five users for years, saying: “Testing with five people lets you find almost as many usability problems as you'd find using many more test participants. Having smaller user groups can make report writing more effective too.
- How many users do you need for UX testing?
- Why you should test with 5 users?
- How many testers do you need to solve 85 of problems?
- How many test users are enough to discover all problems?
How many users do you need for UX testing?
Elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford.
Why you should test with 5 users?
In a research study from 2000, Jakob Nielsen and Tom Landauer found that you only need 5 users to test your application in order to identify 75-99% of all usability problems. You only need 3 to 5 users to identify the majority of usability issues.
How many testers do you need to solve 85 of problems?
The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford. If you test zero users, then the result will be zero insight.
How many test users are enough to discover all problems?
Nielsen's work suggests that 15 users will reveal all the known usability problems in a design, but recommends a more effective spend of three iterative tests with 5 users. Perfetti & Landesman (2001) suggest that more than 8 testers are needed to detect all usability issues.
