How to use ChatGPT for usability testing

User testing helps teams ensure that their digital products meet user expectations and deliver a rich and intuitive experience. However, it’s also a very time-consuming process.

To streamline usability testing workflows, ChatGPT has emerged as a valuable assistant for generating test cases, crafting research questions, and also giving user feedback analysis.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to use ChatGPT for usability testing, as well as follow along with a step-by-step tutorial.

Understanding usability testing

Usability testing is the process of evaluating how easily users can interact with a product to accomplish certain tasks. 

It differs from functional testing, which validates if the features are working correctly and as intended. Usability testing focuses on experience and identifies friction points, confusion, opportunities to improve the flow, UI, etc.

It helps in answering many important questions like: Can users accomplish their tasks without getting confused? Did the product assume mental models that are widely different from the ones users possess?

“Testing with one user early in the project is better than testing with 50 near the end.”
– Steve Krug, usability expert and author of Don’t Make Me Think

How usability testing fits into software quality and release validation

Usability testing sits at the intersection of UX design, product management, QA, and customer experience. It helps determine how intuitive the designed flow is and if the solution or the product flow actually solves the user’s pain point in an efficient way.

What is a usability test script?

A usability test script runs alongside user interviews to collect data points. These data points are then analyzed for qualitative feedback.

What does it mean to use ChatGPT for usability testing?

With ChatGPT, users can use AI as a copilot to design, structure, and analyze usability testing workflows.

It’s a thinking partner for your team and a productivity multiplier that can off-load time-consuming drafting work for product teams so they can focus on high-value activities like recruiting the right users, conducting the sessions, and making strategic decisions based on their findings.

With ChatGPT, users can use AI as a copilot to design, structure, and analyze usability testing workflows.

How ChatGPT can assist in usability testing

ChatGPT can act as a collaborative tool throughout the research process and specifically enable teams to:

1. Generate test scripts and questions
2. Simulate user personas and edge cases
3. Summarize and analyze user feedback
4. Synthesize those findings and feedback into actionable recommendations
5. Identify patterns in the usability issues

Why are teams using AI to support usability testing?

Teams utilize AI for usability testing because it helps them:

1. Speed up test design

ChatGPT can generate a comprehensive test script in minutes and create usability plans that otherwise would take hours. This allows teams to iterate quickly or even test multiple variations of scenarios.

2. Improve coverage

Due to higher reasoning capabilities, ChatGPT can suggest edge cases, alternative flows, and perspectives that teams may miss due to limited mental bandwidth, creative blocks, lack of comprehensive product knowledge, and so on.

3. Maintain consistency

ChatGPT can maintain a consistent structure and tone across all the usability test materials like scripts, summaries, feedback analysis reports, etc. This can reduce the communication gap between team members who evaluate usability test outputs.

4. Address resource constraints

A lot of small and lean teams lack dedicated UX researchers who can devote time specifically for usability testing.

ChatGPT, in a way, democratizes access to usability testing so even product managers, QA, UX designers, customer success, and so on can perform usability testing without needing formal training.

5. Scale research analysis

Analyzing qualitative feedback from multiple users can be time-consuming. ChatGPT can perform this analysis, create summaries and reports, cluster themes, and extract key insights from the test quickly.

How to do website usability testing

When testing a website specifically, you should follow a structured approach where you:

1. Identify what your users want to accomplish on your website, like completing a purchase.
2. Identify critical user flows, focusing on the most important user journeys. For example, Searching a Product -> Viewing Results -> Sharing Search Results.
3. Recruit users who match your target audience. Choose first-time visitors, users returning to the website after a long time, users with different familiarity levels, etc.
4. Create task-based scenarios and realistic tasks, like purchasing shoes under $50.
5. Choose the type of testing (moderated or unmoderated) and record those sessions, take notes, and capture screen recordings to collect qualitative feedback.
6. Analyze the feedback and separate findings into high-impact blockers, medium friction points, minor improvements, etc.

Types of usability testing and ChatGPT’s role

Different types of testing can benefit differently from ChatGPT:

ChatGPT can utilize user persona context and tailor a usability test script to assist with this.

1. Moderated usability testing

In moderated usability testing, a facilitator guides users through tasks in real time, observing them and asking any follow-up questions. ChatGPT can utilize user persona context and tailor a usability test script to assist with this.

2. Unmoderated usability testing

In this usability testing approach, users complete tasks independently without a facilitator using remote tools like surveys. ChatGPT itself can generate such surveys and questions.

3. Exploratory testing

This method involves unscripted testing where users freely explore a product and discover issues and edge cases. ChatGPT can be used to suggest some edge cases using the product’s context.

4. Accessibility testing

This process evaluates how usable a product is for people with disabilities and ensures compliance and accessibility standards for the product. ChatGPT can generate accessibility-focused scenarios to assist with this.

How to use ChatGPT for usability testing

The following steps outline how and where ChatGPT fits in the usability testing life cycle:

How can ChatGPT help generate usability testing scenarios?

Usability tests always start with a realistic task. Consider the prompt:

Generate usability testing scenarios for a first-time user signing up on a fintech app for stock market investing.

ChatGPT will generate usability testing scenarios like creating an account, performing KYC to verify identity, adding funds, placing a trade order, etc.

How can ChatGPT assist in creating a usability test script?

A usability test script includes:

1. Tasks that are to be performed by the users
2. Questions the tester will ask
3. Data points, information, and observations to capture

Here’s an example prompt that can create a well-crafted usability testing script in ChatGPT:

Write a usability test script for a food delivery app checkout flow. Include tasks, follow-up questions, and success criteria.

Upon sending this prompt to ChatGPT, you can generate step-by-step tasks, questions for follow-ups and probing deeper into the test, and expected outcomes.

How can ChatGPT assist in writing usability test questions?

Good usability questions are open-ended, non-leading, and focus heavily on user intent. A common prompt that can generate a good set of usability test questions could be:

Write 10 usability testing questions for evaluating the onboarding flow’s intuitiveness and clarity.

Simulating user personas

ChatGPT can also act as different types of users, such as a first-time user, power user, non-technical user, user of a certain age/gender/demographic, accessibility-focused user, etc.

Here’s an example prompt:

Act as a first-time user trying to book a hotel on this interface. What elements on the booking page or parts of the flow confuse you?

The above prompt can help identify any missing cues, poor labeling on the interface, cognitive friction, etc.

How can ChatGPT help analyze usability testing feedback?

After the usability testing sessions, teams often collect notes, transcripts, survey responses, etc. ChatGPT can summarize insights, cluster themes, identify recurring issues, and also suggest next steps or improvements.

Here’s an example prompt:

Analyze this usability testing feedback and group issues into themes with severity levels.

Guide to using ChatGPT in usability testing

Now, let’s put these steps into practice and follow along with a complete end-to-end guide for using ChatGPT in usability testing. We’ll take the example of a new invoice management feature a team is shipping in their software.

Defining testing objectives

Define the goals of this usability test, such as:

1. Can users find and create new invoices?
2. Do users understand the invoice status workflow?
3. Can users export or download invoices to PDF successfully?

Generating user personas and test scenarios

Use ChatGPT to first create detailed personas for different user perspectives using the following prompt:

I'm conducting usability testing for an invoice management feature in B2B accounting software. Generate three user personas representing different types of users: a small business owner, an accounting clerk at a mid-size company, and a CFO at an enterprise organization. For each persona, include their goals, pain points, and technical proficiency level.

ChatGPT will now generate some user personas as shown below:

🧑‍💼 Persona 1: Small Business Owner
Name: Rohan Mehta
Business Type: D2C e-commerce brand (10-15 employees)
🎯 Goals
Quickly create and send invoices to customers/vendors…
😣 Pain Points
Finds invoicing tools overly complex with unnecessary features…
💻 Technical Proficiency
Moderate…
🧠 Behavioral Insight
Rohan values speed and simplicity over depth. If the workflow takes more than a few clicks, he'll either delay it or delegate it.

…

Then, you can create a realistic task scenario for a specific user persona called “Small Business Owner.”

Here’s an example prompt we can feed to ChatGPT:

Based on the small business owner persona you created, generate 5 realistic task scenarios for testing invoice management functionality. Each scenario should include context about why the user needs to complete the task and what success looks like. Format as: "Scenario: [context]. Your task: [specific instruction]."

Here’s an example task ChatGPT might return:

1. Creating and Sending an Invoice Quickly
Scenario: You've just completed a bulk order for a repeat customer and need to send them an invoice immediately so they can process payment. You're short on time and want to finish this in under a few minutes.
Your task: Create and send an invoice for ₹25,000 to an existing customer using the fastest possible method.

…

Drafting a usability test script

Next, you can prompt ChatGPT to generate a script that you will customize with the specific technology your product uses, consent language of your company, compensation details relevant to recruiting candidates for the usability tests, and any brand-specific tone adjustments:

Create a complete moderated usability test script for the invoice management feature. Include:
- Welcome and introduction (5 minutes)
- Consent and recording permission
- Background questions about the participant's current invoice process
- 4 task scenarios with follow-up probing questions
- Post-test questions about overall impressions
- Thank you and compensation details

Use a friendly, conversational tone appropriate for remote testing sessions.

If you’re using the same chat window, ChatGPT will derive some context from the previous messages around user persona and test scenarios. You should review the script carefully and make adjustments as needed.

Analyzing feedback

Once the testing has been completed with real participants, you can use ChatGPT to analyze qualitative data using a prompt as shown below:

I conducted 8 usability tests on invoice management functionality. Here are anonymous quotes from participants about the invoice creation process:
[Paste 10-15 participant quotes]
Identify recurring themes, group similar feedback together, and highlight the top 3 usability issues based on frequency and severity. For each issue, suggest potential design improvements.

You can also give additional prompts to create a list of actionable items or create a detailed report to share with an internal stakeholder or engineering/product team.

Best practices for using ChatGPT in usability testing

“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.”

– John Maeda, former president, Rhode Island School of Design

To maximize the value gained from ChatGPT in a usability test, the following best practices can come in handy:

1. Use effective wording for generating your AI task script

Avoid vague prompts and use prompts that include context about product, user type, goal, and constraints to get more relevant scripts.

Be specific about product-related information, users, testing goals, etc. Include details about user types, features, functionality, what you’re trying to understand, etc. This will ensure ChatGPT gives you more relevant output.

2. Iterate and refine

Build on top of the drafts ChatGPT gives you. Refine with follow-ups such as “make these tasks more specific” or “rewrite this in simpler language.”

3. Combine AI efficiency with human judgment

Apply your own expertise to select, modify, and validate what output works well and what isn’t suitable for you.

4. Validate with stakeholders

Share your AI-generated tests, scripts, and analysis with product managers, designers, and other researchers to catch any unrealistic scenarios, hallucinations, irrelevancy, etc.

What ChatGPT does well for usability testing

ChatGPT excels at specific components of usability testing:

1. Generating variations and refinements

If you need to test the same feature but with different task framings, ChatGPT can produce multiple versions instantly and help you find the clearest wording.

2. Creating structured formats

ChatGPT can reliably handle elements of usability testing like test scripts, questionnaires, and consent forms in a consistent manner.

Using information about your interface, ChatGPT can easily predict or spot usability problems based on established UX principles.

3. Identifying potential issues

Using information about your interface, ChatGPT can easily predict or spot usability problems based on established UX principles.

4. Synthesizing patterns

ChatGPT can identify recurring themes rapidly, which can help with analysis of qualitative feedback from multiple participants.

What works well about ChatGPT’s test scripts

Since ChatGPT excels at generating structured, comprehensive, and neutral-tone usability test scripts quickly, it can cover user flows, suggest probing questions, and ensure consistency. This also makes it useful for speeding up early-stage test planning and improving test case coverage.

Challenges and limitations of AI in usability testing

“Pay attention to what users do, not what they say.”
– Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group

Despite its strong capabilities and benefits in speeding up usability testing, AI usability testing has certain limitations that teams should be aware of:

1. It can’t substitute for real users

ChatGPT cannot predict how actual humans will interact or respond with your interface. Only real users can validate if your product works well for them or where and how they experience confusion, frustration, or delight.

2. It lacks product-specific context

ChatGPT can pull information from the web, or act on information/context you provide to it, but it’s very difficult for it to know your industry’s unique terminology, specific workflows, and product’s technical constraints.

A good workaround to this is providing explicit context about these things in a succinct manner so that you don’t end up consuming a lot of tokens.

3. It can create hallucinations and unrealistic scenarios

Since ChatGPT itself doesn’t have deep domain knowledge, it may sometimes hallucinate and generate unrealistic scenarios.

4. It cannot conduct usability testing sessions

ChatGPT can be used as a collaborator, but it isn’t a drop-in replacement for your entire usability testing workflow. It can’t conduct sessions where it observes body language, hears tone of voice, or follows up on participants’ responses.

5. It potentially has bias

ChatGPT is based on training data that may not be representative of your entire diverse user base.

Future of AI in usability testing

As AI capabilities advance, several developments can enable teams to incorporate it in usability testing:

1. Agentic technology for continuous testing

Agentic systems can monitor user sessions continuously, flag any unusual patterns, or identify potential usability issues.

AI can analyze sessions to identify confusion signals and help researchers prioritize how and which sessions to review in detail dynamically.

2. Automated pattern recognition

AI can analyze sessions to identify confusion signals and help researchers prioritize how and which sessions to review in detail dynamically.

3. Personalized research assistance

AI can gather context and even learn more about your product, team, technology, and user persona. It can then incorporate that into building usability tests and scripts, and extracting findings from research data.

4. Integrations with other platforms

AI capabilities can work directly on top of existing platforms and integrate with teams’ existing suite of usability testing tools.

Explore how Tricentis helps validate digital experiences

To ensure your software functions well under practical load, integrates properly with other systems, and meets security requirements, Tricentis offers intelligent and continuous testing capabilities that teams can use to deliver robust functional testing, performance validation, and risk-based optimization.

Combined with usability insights, teams can utilize Tricentis to accelerate release cycles without compromising on software quality.