First click testing is used to determine if participants are able to find something they're looking for in an interface within their first click. Research has shown that assessing the first click is important because it is much more likely that a user will succeed in completing a task if they're able to click on the right path initially. First click testing will be able to tell you if participants are clicking the intended area for a given scenario. If they don’t, you can learn where else they would click, and why.
You have a navigation design that’s in the very early stages (it may just be a static mock or even a sketch) and you want to know if participants are able to correctly identify where to go to find certain elements/information, and if not, identify where they are going instead.
Goal: Learn where participants would initially click to complete a task and why. This testing is earlier than testing broader usability and will help to validate design ideas for navigation changes.
Type of Facilitation: Unmoderated
Fidelity required: static images, even a sketch if there is enough detail
Recommended sample size: 30* participants. There are additional factors that impact the sample size indicated for each study, please work with your UXR to determine this.
Data to collect:
Metric | Details | What it measures |
---|---|---|
Findability rate | If there are multiple correct options, a breakdown of how often each choice was selected (%) | Task success (can participants find the correct item?) |
Confidence | 1 = Not at all confident, 2 = Not very confident, 3 = Somewhat confident 4 = Very confident, 5 = Extremely confident) And why they chose that rating |
How confident participants are with their choice |
Recommended testing platform: Qualtrics
To report brief/initial findings in Slack or in an Issue, please use the following format and utilize this template to create a chart:
If there's any context that you can provide in your interpretation of the results, that will be helpful. For example, if participants selected Merge Requests in the left sidebar, you can add that the common incorrect first click in this area may be due to the task calling out a merge request.