Test objectives

Before deciding anything else about our test, we need to clearly define our objectives. Arguably, this is the most important step in test design. A well-defined set of objectives will make most test design decisions easy, if not obvious. It will help you to decide where and how to test, what kind of users to invite, and what tasks to give them; it goes even further. It will help us in the next chapter when you will create the analysis guidelines, find and summarize user insights, and communicate them in the form of a map. 

Note

The objectives are the base for designing, analyzing, mapping, and communicating any user test. The highest level objective for all user tests should be to gain a better understanding of the users and their behavior. 

Besides the better understanding of the users and their behaviors, you will also need to have lower-level objectives--objectives that are specific to the test you will be running. Test objectives should always be rooted in our the opportunity...