Frequently Asked Questions

Usability Testing at Hygraph

How does Hygraph conduct usability tests?

Hygraph conducts usability tests by following a structured process: defining testing goals and questions, building prototypes and scripts, recruiting users from relevant personas, running sessions (in-person or remote), and documenting findings. The process includes using starter templates for organizing and reporting, and emphasizes observing real user interactions to identify and address problem areas early in development. For more details, see this article (Feb 09, 2023).

What are the steps involved in Hygraph's usability testing process?

The steps include: 1) Formulating testing goals and questions, 2) Building a prototype and writing a script, 3) Recruiting and reaching out to users, 4) Running the session (in-person or remote), and 5) Documenting and analyzing findings. Hygraph uses templates and internal sessions to refine the process before engaging real users. Reports include both qualitative and quantitative data, screenshots, and major findings. Source: Hygraph Blog.

How does Hygraph select users for usability testing?

Hygraph recruits users by posting in Slack or Discord channels, using in-app prompts, social media outreach, and Intercom pop-ups on the web app. Agencies may also be used to find users matching specific personas. The feedback received varies by persona, so careful selection is important. Source: Hygraph Blog.

How are usability test findings documented and shared at Hygraph?

Findings are documented in Notion, including both qualitative and quantitative data, screenshots, and major insights. Reports are shared internally and may be presented to stakeholders in meetings for visibility and communication. Source: Hygraph Blog.

Pricing & Plans

What is Hygraph's pricing model?

Hygraph offers a free forever Hobby plan, a Growth plan starting at $199/month, and custom Enterprise plans. For full details, visit the Hygraph pricing page.

Features & Capabilities

What are the key features and capabilities of Hygraph?

Hygraph provides a GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, scalability, and a user-friendly interface. It supports integrations with platforms like Netlify, Vercel, Shopify, BigCommerce, AWS S3, Cloudinary, and more. Hygraph also offers enterprise-grade security, SSO, audit logs, and sandbox environments. For a full list, see Hygraph Features and Integrations.

Does Hygraph offer an API?

Yes, Hygraph provides a powerful GraphQL API for efficient content management and delivery. Learn more at the API Reference.

What integrations does Hygraph support?

Hygraph supports integrations with hosting and deployment platforms (Netlify, Vercel), eCommerce (Shopify, BigCommerce, commercetools), localization (Lokalise, Crowdin, EasyTranslate, Smartling), digital asset management (Aprimo, AWS S3, Bynder, Cloudinary, Mux, Scaleflex Filerobot), personalization (Ninetailed), AI (AltText.ai), and more. See the full list at Hygraph Integrations.

Security & Compliance

What security and compliance certifications does Hygraph have?

Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, ISO 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant. It offers SSO integrations, audit logs, encryption at rest and in transit, and sandbox environments for enterprise-grade security. More details at Hygraph Security Features.

Use Cases & Benefits

Who can benefit from using Hygraph?

Hygraph is designed for developers, IT decision-makers, content creators, project/program managers, agencies, solution partners, and technology partners. It is ideal for modern software companies, enterprises seeking to modernize, and brands aiming to scale globally, improve development velocity, or re-platform from legacy solutions. Source: ICPVersion2_Hailey.pdf.

What business impact can customers expect from using Hygraph?

Customers can expect time savings, streamlined workflows, faster speed-to-market, and enhanced customer experience through scalable content delivery. Case studies show Komax achieved 3X faster time to market, Autoweb saw a 20% increase in website monetization, and Samsung improved customer engagement. Source: Hygraph Product Page.

What industries are represented in Hygraph's case studies?

Industries include food and beverage (Dr. Oetker), consumer electronics (Samsung), automotive (AutoWeb), healthcare (Vision Healthcare), travel and hospitality (HolidayCheck), media and publishing, eCommerce, SaaS (Bellhop), marketplace, education technology, and wellness and fitness. See Hygraph Case Studies.

Pain Points & Solutions

What problems does Hygraph solve?

Hygraph addresses operational pains (reliance on developers, outdated tech stacks, conflicting global team needs, clunky content creation), financial pains (high costs, slow speed-to-market, expensive maintenance, scalability challenges), and technical pains (boilerplate code, overwhelming queries, evolving schemas, cache and OpenID integration issues). Solutions include an intuitive interface, GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, and scalability. Source: Hygraph Product Page.

How does Hygraph solve pain points for different personas?

For developers: Hygraph reduces boilerplate code and streamlines query management. For content creators/project managers: It provides an intuitive interface for independent content updates. For business stakeholders: Hygraph lowers operational costs, supports scalability, and accelerates speed-to-market. Source: Hygraph Product Page.

Customer Success & Testimonials

Can you share specific customer success stories using Hygraph?

Yes. Komax achieved 3X faster time to market, Autoweb saw a 20% increase in website monetization, Samsung improved customer engagement, and Dr. Oetker enhanced their digital experience using MACH architecture. More stories at Hygraph Product Page.

Who are some of Hygraph's customers?

Customers include Sennheiser, Holidaycheck, Ancestry, Samsung, Dr. Oetker, Epic Games, Bandai Namco, Gamescom, Leo Vegas, and Clayton Homes. See Hygraph Case Studies for more.

Implementation & Support

How easy is it to get started with Hygraph?

Hygraph is designed for easy onboarding, even for non-technical users. Top Villas launched a new project in just 2 months. Users can sign up for a free account and access documentation, video tutorials, and onboarding guides. Source: Hygraph Documentation.

What support and training does Hygraph offer?

Hygraph provides 24/7 support via chat, email, and phone. Enterprise customers receive dedicated onboarding and expert guidance. All users have access to documentation, video tutorials, webinars, and a community Slack channel. Source: Hygraph Contact Page.

Product Performance & Reliability

How does Hygraph perform in terms of content delivery and reliability?

Hygraph is optimized for rapid content delivery, improving user experience, engagement, and search engine rankings. It reduces bounce rates and increases conversions. The platform is consistently reliable and easy to implement, making training new users straightforward. Source: Headless CMS Checklist.

Customer Feedback & Usability

What feedback have customers shared about Hygraph's ease of use?

Customers praise Hygraph for its intuitive interface and ease of use. Feedback includes 'super easy to set up and use' and 'even non-technical users can start using it right away.' The UI is logical and user-friendly, making it accessible for both technical and non-technical teams. Source: Hygraph Try Headless CMS.

Are there any customer testimonials about Hygraph?

Yes. Daniel L., Software Engineer, says Hygraph is flexible and powerful with its GraphQL APIs. Aryan S., Software Engineer, appreciates its ease of use and fast performance. Matija Aleksic, Software Engineer at VegaIT, says, 'Hygraph is so easy to use that it is not real. Every problem we had with Hygraph, your platform covered it thoroughly.' VU, Verified G2 User, says, 'Super easy to set up and use. I'm not at all a technical guy, but I was able to start using it right away.' Source: G2 Summer 2024.

Documentation & Resources

Where can I find Hygraph's technical documentation?

Comprehensive technical documentation is available at Hygraph Documentation, covering everything needed to build and deploy projects.

KPIs & Metrics

What KPIs and metrics are associated with Hygraph's solutions?

KPIs include time saved on content updates, number of updates without developer intervention, system uptime, speed of deployment, consistency across regions, user satisfaction scores, reduction in operational costs, ROI, time to market, maintenance costs, scalability metrics, and performance during peak usage. For more, see CMS KPIs Blog.

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How we conduct usability tests at Hygraph

This article will walk you through our usability testing process, along with some examples and resources to help you get started!
Sanjana Laddha

Written by Sanjana 

Feb 09, 2023
usability testing at hygraph

One of the most valuable pieces of advice I've ever received is to pay attention to what users do, not just what they say. Usability testing is the perfect way to do just that. It is a powerful tool that allows teams to observe real users interact with the product and draw valuable insights from it.

At Hygraph, we conduct usability tests as part of the user testing process to identify and address problem areas early on in the development process. This article will walk you through it, along with some examples and resources to help you get started!

1. Formulating testing goals & questions

Is usability testing the best way to find answers to your questions? Take some time to reflect on the problem you’re trying to solve (or discover). Talk to your stakeholders and team to clearly define a goal. Some starter questions can be:

  • What are we trying to learn from the user tests?
  • What kind of feedback are we looking for?

Let’s take an example:

This is the goal we defined for one of our internal projects: *“The aim is to understand how users approach and use nested components in Hygraph (subtext: …so that we can improve on it)”*

We wanted to observe the users as they work with this fairly new feature and have a dialogue with them as they move to different parts of the flow. Usability testing seemed the best way to do this in real-time with real users.

So next, we mapped out the scope of the testing by coming up with questions we wanted insights on:

  • Does the user understand what nested components are and what they do?
  • Can the user easily build them using the current flow? And so on…

The tricky part here is to keep the questions specific without being biased toward a certain ‘solution’. These questions are more contextual and differ from feature to feature.

2. Building a prototype and writing a script

This is the creative part of the process because there are multiple ways to build a prototype. You have the liberty to decide the extent of details and complexity you want to get into depending on the time you have. Here’s how we approach it in brief:

  • Define the part/s of the flow that needs to be tested
  • Build a story/scenario around the flow to be able to communicate it to the users
  • Put the screens together with the story in a click-through prototype

building a prototype

Once the prototype is made, it’s time to write a script for the person conducting the usability tests. It’s proven very useful for us to have a script outline ready to make sure you communicate all the details properly to the user without overwhelming them. You can use the template shared above to write your script.

Some users might not be aware of how prototypes work, so it helps to mention and demonstrate what they are expected to do. Also, saying things like “any action or flow you cannot figure out is feedback to us and doesn’t reflect your skills.” can help ease their anxiety. It is important that the user feels comfortable and is able to think out loud to get the right feedback.

An additional step here is to conduct a few sessions internally to test your script as well as the prototype before taking them to real users. You will overall be more confident and have the opportunity to make the prototype better.

3. Recruiting and reaching out to users

As you are building prototypes, you or your team members can parallelly focus on looking for the right users to test them with. The kind of feedback that is received will differ significantly from persona to persona, so it’s best to consider this carefully before inviting users.

Some organic ways to reach out to users are by posting in your Slack or Discord channels if you have an active community and want access to a diverse set of users. If you have a website or application online, you can experiment by adding in-app prompts for targeted users.

If you want to test with people who haven’t used your product before, social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram can help. So far, adding Intercom pop-ups to targeted users on our web app has gotten us the most responses.

reaching out to users

If you are not sure of the methods above, another way to recruit users is through agencies. There are a lot of them available online that can help you find users that match your persona.

4. Running the session

The sessions can be in person or over a video call. You can decide what works best for you and the user when you reach out to them. We usually provide a link (Calendly or Google Calendar) to the user so they can choose the time and date of their preference.

Running the session can be fairly simple- follow the script and pay close attention to the user. Make sure to tell them to think aloud and ask questions like “What were you expecting to happen when you clicked that ——?” to get fuller insights.

Observing facial expressions and overall body language is also a critical part of running a usability test. If you spot the user feeling unsure about something while using the prototype, pause and ask questions to understand the reason behind their confused glances. Remember that we are trying to learn what the user thinks and gain a deeper insight into their behavior as they use the product. It’s not just about whether they get the flow right. The more tests you conduct, the better you get at it.

5. Documenting and analyzing the findings

Hurray! A major chunk of the work is done, and now it’s time to write a report. Summarising extensive findings into readable data points can be a challenge. The way we approach it is by trying to answer the questions that we wrote in Step 2. Here’s an example of what your bullet points can look like:

  • 7 out of 8 users clicked on the blue button to go to the next step.
  • Most users were confused by the description of this modal and couldn’t figure out what to do next until prompted.

Pro Tip

A few tips for writing a stellar report: 1. Add both qualitative and quantitative data while documenting 2. Add relevant screenshots and clips from user-test recordings to the report to communicate user behavior visually. 3. Highlight the major findings of the test at the beginning and then go into more detail screen by screen. 4. You can choose to add miscellaneous findings at the end that aren’t related to your testing goals but can still be valuable for the team.

We use Notion to write reports and share them internally. You can make the report into a presentation format for better visibility and communication and since not everybody can be a part of the testing, scheduling a readout meeting for the relevant stakeholders and team members to share insights is the best way to conclude the journey.

And that’s it…

If you are a designer, you can take those insights and apply them to improve the user experience. If you are a product manager, you can prioritize which problems to tackle and how. When usability testing is done right, it can save a lot of time, money, and effort. Don’t hesitate to experiment and tweak the process to your needs. Good luck and happy testing!

Blog Author

Sanjana Laddha

Sanjana Laddha

Sanjana is a Product Designer at Hygraph. She is passionate about building human-centric products and likes to draw comics in her free time.

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