Many people assume that testing documents with users is expensive and time-consuming. Here, we give some tips for user testing even if you don’t have a lot of time or budget available.

I remember once attending a presentation by an insurance regulator. The researcher presented some surprising findings about customer understanding of a medical insurance brochure. According to the study, women’s understanding was far worse than men’s understanding. I thought this was strange – until I looked at the survey question:

‘How well do you understand the document?’, the survey asked.

The findings clearly showed the gap between perceived understanding and real understanding.

If you think you understand something, it does not mean you really understand it. In fact, sometimes I think it shows the opposite – people not even knowing what they do not know! It might show, as I suspect in the example above, that some groups are less willing to admit they don’t understand than others.

This is why user testing is so important and interesting.

A clear document should help customers do three things:

These are practical outcomes that can be tested in an interview format with a customer, or with a carefully worded questionnaire.

Your documents serve people with different levels of confidence, knowledge, language ability and digital access. Testing should reflect this range.
Remember to include people with a range of disabilities in your testing. Think about including these groups in your tests:

Testing with a range of users helps you to make sure that your document will be understandable to your full range of customers, and will tell you if there are any changes that need to be made for particular groups. For example, you might find that people with less experience of a product or service would like extra information about it before they buy.

User testing does not always need a large sample. A small number of tests can find many problems.

For an early prototype, testing with five to eight people can reveal many of the biggest problems. This is enough to show whether customers can find the main point, understand the wording and identify the next step.

You can then incorporate the findings into another round of testing with more varied users.

A practical approach is:

This approach keeps testing manageable. It also helps teams avoid spending too much time polishing wording before they know whether the structure works.

Start with documents that customers rely on before they make a choice, take action, spend money, claim, renew, cancel or give consent.

These are high-impact documents. A high-impact document may be:

Unless you specifically want to test perceived understanding instead of real understanding, don’t ask a customer if they understand.

Go for comprehension questions.

The point isn’t to trick the person being interviewed. It’s to find out if the document is usable and useful.

For example, you could ask a potential customer of an investment product:

What is the cost if you close this investment before the maturity date? Will you have to pay the admin fee each year, or is it automatically deducted? What would you do next? What would happen if you do not contact your financial adviser after receiving this email?

A prototype document is a draft that is realistic enough for customers to use.

It may be a letter, policy summary, product information sheet, digital screen, help page or email. It does not need final branding before testing. It does need the real structure, wording and main content.

Testing a prototype is useful because the team can still make changes.

Testing after approval is less useful. Legal, compliance and product review may already be complete – and we all know that trying to get changes after legal and compliance have given the greenlight is almost impossible.

Testing with users is always possible – a smaller amount of testing is better than no testing at all.

Frances Gordon is the UK Ambassador for PLAIN, the Plain Language Association International, and an expert contributor to the British Standards Institution on the development of plain-language standards. She specialises in clear communication for complex and regulated environments, with a focus on accessibility and financial inclusion. Her work helps organisations make complex information clearer and easier to trust. She is Director of Narratology.

See Frances Gordon’s LinkedIn profile or visit the Narratology website.