Detailed test objectives are typically not shared with the participant. Rather, it is an internal statement that sets a baseline for subsequent tests. Objectives that are not met in the first round of testing, need to be re-tested until satisfactory results are achieved. The objectives set are developed in collaboration with business and development stakeholders, to ensure alignment with and, agreement on the scope and focus of the testing.

In this example, let's pretend that Amazon is planning to refine a product filtering functionality on the website. A testing server will be used to present test participants with a functional website, so that the experience will be familiar to the participants. The objective is to test the effectiveness and impact of the new refinement option on the user experience. Success will eventually be measured as an increase in customer engagement with the feature, and potentially--increase in sales. In the test, the designers will check the following:

• Did participants notice the refinement options?
• Which of the filters did they use?
• Do they use multiple filters?
• Which filters might they use regularly and why?
• Which filters might they ignore regularly and why?
• Is the filter list too long, such that users miss some of the filtering options?
• Are users happy with the feature and with the filtering results?