The goal of the study

At the start of a study, its goals must be clear. The goals drive most of the other elements of the framework.

Goals can be anything from all-encompassing (wanting a general feel of how usable a website is) to very specific (wanting to evaluate a new feature and how the users like it, or why the conversion rate went down after a website redesign). At this point in the study, it is more important to ensure that the goals are realistic (that is, that they can actually be achieved with a usability study) than very detailed.

 

For example, if the goal is to evaluate whether a new marketplace website can go live in its current state, then the goal is not feasible for a usability study: the study can only provide results about the usability of the website, and while we absolutely agree that usability should be a strong deciding factor, a go-live decision for a marketplace website should also be based on whether the product catalog is complete and relevant to customers, for example...