How to use AI for Usability testing?

What we’ve just discussed is actually a central challenge in usability testing. But what does it mean? Usability testing is all about understanding how real users interact with your product to identify challenges or friction points. And although it is named “testing”, in this process, you should not solely focus on bugs; you should understand how intuitive and enjoyable your product is to use.

Let’s put the importance into perspective – did you know that 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad user experience? That’s the kind of insight usability testing helps you avoid. 

Unlike functional testing, which focuses on whether your app works as intended, usability testing focuses on how users experience it. It’s about determining whether your navigation is confusing, whether a button is hard to find, or whether your checkout flow is frustrating.

Usability testing isn’t a one-and-done task, either. It’s an ongoing process that evolves as your product grows and helps you stay aligned with user expectations. The ultimate goal? Make sure your product is one of those products that users love—and usability testing helps you create just that.

Think about the last time you gave up on an app or website because it was frustrating to use. Chances are, poor usability was the reason. Usability testing is vital because it helps you find these pain points before your users experience them. By watching real users interact with your product, you can identify where they struggle, what confuses them, and what drives them away.

• It builds trust with your users. A product that feels intuitive creates confidence. When people don’t have to think twice about how to use your app, they stick around longer.
• It keeps your product competitive. Your users compare your product to others every day. No, they don’t do it consciously; they click on yours, face issues, go to another one, don’t face them, and prefer that other product to yours. Usability testing helps you stay ahead by continuously improving the experience.
• It protects your business from failure. Studies show that 70% of online businesses fail due to poor usability. That’s a huge risk you can’t afford to take. Usability testing ensures your product works the way users expect, keeping them engaged and happy.
• It saves you time and money. Catching design issues early means fewer costly fixes later. The later you find them, the costlier they become. Also, you’re not wasting resources on rebuilding features that could’ve been done right the first time.

So in short, usability testing is essential for delivering a product that users love.

Now you know that usability testing is crucial, but we have not covered the benefits yet. Most of usability testing benefits are associated with avoiding costly UX/UI mistakes. The more thorough your usability testing is, the fewer issues will arise later.

By closely examining how real users interact with your product, you get insights that are hard to find any other way. Let’s look at the key benefits of usability testing:

• Improved user experience. Usability testing reveals where users struggle, so you can eliminate confusion and frustration. This results in smoother navigation and a more intuitive design.
• Increased user satisfaction. When users find your product easy to use, they’re more likely to enjoy the experience. A simple, effective interface leads to happier customers who stick around. As we mentioned above, 88% of users leave and never come back to your site after a bad experience.
• Higher conversion rates. When your product is easy to navigate, users are also more likely to complete actions—whether it’s signing up, purchasing, or returning. One study shows that a well-designed user interface can increase the conversion rate by 200%. Usability testing helps remove barriers that could prevent users from taking the most crucial steps. 
• Fewer support issues. If users can easily figure out how to use your product, they’ll need less help from customer support. This frees up your team to focus on other tasks while improving your product’s reputation.
• Better alignment with user needs. Usability testing ensures your product is built around real user needs, not assumptions. This keeps your product relevant and more likely to meet market expectations. One great example of this is Airbnb, and their dynamic pricing strategy based on market research and competitor analysis

As a result, your product not only works but works well for the people who matter most—your users.

Here comes the point where we should make a distinction. Usability testing is this and that, but does it mean both automated and manual testing give you the same benefits? The answer is, no. 

Manual usability testing is time-consuming and often misses subtle user pain points. You spend hours analysing feedback, watching videos, and gathering data, but the process is slow, and crucial insights can easily slip through the cracks. Of course, human intuition and decision-making could not be ignored here; but there will be gaps in the process for sure.

As we mentioned earlier, AI can fill these gaps, offering smarter, faster ways to deal with usability issues. It can automate what once took hours, helping you get deeper insights into how users interact with your product and allowing you to make changes before problems escalate.

Here’s how AI can improve your usability testing process:

• Track Every Interaction: AI can automatically monitor user actions, from clicks to scrolls, with pinpoint accuracy. This means no more manual tracking or missing important behaviours.

How to do it: Use tools like Hotjar or FullStory, which uses AI to automatically monitor user interactions. They provide heatmaps, session recordings, and detailed analytics on user behaviour. You get access to clicks, scrolls, and navigation patterns, without the need for manual tracking. If you don’t have access to these tools, a simple back-and-forth prompting to AI and asking for possible usability issues could also be an example here.

• Simulate Diverse User Scenarios: AI can test your product across various user types, devices, and environments. This gives you a comprehensive picture of how your product performs in real-world conditions.

How to do it: Platforms like BrowserStack and Sauce Labs use AI to simulate various devices, browsers, and user conditions. For example, they can replicate low-bandwidth environments or test on different screen sizes to check whether your product performs well under real-world constraints.

• Provide Instant Feedback: Some AI-powered tools can analyse users’ facial expressions during usability testing to determine their emotional state, such as frustration, confusion, satisfaction, or joy. This can be done through webcam footage, where AI algorithms track key facial movements like raised eyebrows or frowns and link them to specific emotions.

Example: Tools like Affectiva and RealEyes use AI to analyse facial expressions during usability testing. They track facial movements and interpret emotions to provide deeper insights into user experiences. These tools rely on advanced algorithms that process webcam footage to deliver emotional analytics.

• Prioritise Issues Based on Impact: AI analyses data and helps you pinpoint which usability issues are the most critical, ensuring you tackle the most significant problems first.

How to do it: Tools like UXCam and Crazy Egg use AI to analyse large datasets from user sessions. They rank usability issues by impact, such as the highest drop-off rates or most repeated errors. It allows you to predict fixes that will have the greatest effect on user experience.

• Measure Progress Over Time: With AI, you can track improvements and monitor user behaviour after each update. This way, you can ensure your product gets better with every iteration.

How to do it: Use platforms like Google Analytics 4 or Mixpanel, and you will see where are the weak points, where you succeeded the most, where you still need minor changes, etc.

AI isn’t here to replace testers; it’s here to make them smarter and more efficient. By using AI in usability testing, you can identify, fix, and improve user experience faster and more effectively than ever before. 

If you want more than just AI-powered usability testing tools, you should go for an all-around Test Management System (TMS). An AI-powered TMS will supercharge your whole testing efforts and not just usability problems – so you can speed up your releases and deliver higher-quality products.

Here’s a checklist to make sure your AI-powered usability testing is on point:

• Define Clear Testing Goals: Determine exactly what aspects of usability you want to test—whether it’s task completion time, ease of navigation, or how intuitive the design is.
• Select the Right AI Tools: Choose AI tools that can track user actions, analyse behaviour patterns, and measure usability issues in real-time. As we have mentioned above, you can use Hotjar for heatmaps, FullStory for session tracking, Affectiva for emotional analysis, and UXCam to prioritise issues. Choose BrowserStack for device simulations, Mixpanel for behavior trends, and Crazy Egg for page analytics.
• Automate User Interaction Tracking: Let AI monitor clicks, scrolling behaviour, and other user actions without manual tracking, giving you detailed insights into the user experience.
• Capture Emotional Responses: Use AI to analyse emotional reactions through sentiment analysis and facial expressions, helping you understand how users feel while interacting with your product.
• Simulate Different User Scenarios: Test your product with AI across different devices, user types, and environments, ensuring that usability remains consistent.
• Analyse Data and Prioritise Issues: Let AI sort through usability data and automatically highlight the most pressing issues that impact the user experience the most.
• Track Progress Over Time: Use AI to track improvements and monitor how changes to your product affect usability across different test rounds.

This way, you’ll have more accurate, efficient, and data-driven usability testing—giving you the insights you need to improve your product faster.

Let’s look at a real use case.

Google has developed an advanced AI model designed to assess the “tappability” of elements within mobile applications. It uses deep learning to evaluate key visual properties like element type, location, size, colour, and text.

How It Works

The AI model was trained using data from:

• 3,500 apps and
• 20,000 unique elements,

all labelled by volunteers who assessed tappability. This process provided AI a wide range of real-world examples, improving its ability to predict tappability with remarkable accuracy.

Key Findings

The AI model delivered results that closely matched human assessments:

• 90% accuracy in predictions.
• The precision of 90.2% and recall of 87%, which means it effectively identified tappable elements.
• It outperformed human volunteers, as more than 40% of labelled elements showed inconsistencies among humans.

The AI’s consistency and reliability make it a powerful tool for usability testing, reducing the need for manual assessments.

Benefits of Usability Testing

Google’s AI model offers several advantages for app developers and designers:

1. Speed and Efficiency: It provides fast insights without relying on time-consuming manual tests.
2. Improved Consistency: Unlike human testers, the AI delivers consistent and definitive results.
3. Enhanced Accuracy: It can better predict user interaction by analyzing tappable and non-tappable elements.

According to Google AI research scientist Yang Li, this “tappability prediction is just the beginning”. Only one conclusion is logical here: AI is taking over the usability testing too, so you have to keep up with the trends and use cases to not miss out.

All in all, bringing AI into usability testing is a game changer for any product team looking to improve user experience. It brings efficiency, deeper insights, and faster feedback loops, helping with your issue management before they become bigger problems. The result? A smoother, more intuitive experience that meets your users’ needs and exceeds their expectations.