It's the time of year for resolutions: where we dream big about the things we want to do and improvements we want to make in the hopes this year will be better than the last. But as everyone who's two weeks into a diet or exercise routine knows, resolutions are easy to set but difficult to keep — especially when you don't have a system in place for making it happen.

This is especially evident when it comes to trying to make improvements to your user testing processes, projects, or programs. Why? Here are some of the most common challenges:

• User testing programs often lack structure and defined processes.
• It's hard to keep track of user testing metrics and understand how or where to make improvements.
• User testing tends to get pushed to the very end of the development process, where it's easy to become an afterthought in the product planning schedule.
• Most user testing professionals aren't full-time test managers, meaning they're juggling user testing efforts with their primary role.

If any of these sound familiar, you're in luck! Keep reading for expert tips on setting — and keeping — realistic and impactful user testing resolutions.

Resolution: Increasing Program ROI

How This Resolution Helps You

Simply put, increasing the ROI of your user testing program enables you to secure resources for your future user testing efforts. Provable metrics help to push prioritization for user testing earlier in the product development life cycle, and you have tangible results to secure stakeholder buy-in. Most importantly, a better user testing program enables you to build better products. It's a win-win-win-win.

How to Keep It: Start Benchmarking Your Progress

The first step in driving improvements to your user testing program is knowing where it is right now. So start by creating benchmarks: look at where your program is, how your projects are performing, how much participation you get or feedback you pull in, and use that data to set goals and measure your progress.

Need some guidance about how to start out with the the most impactful metrics for your program? This blog post will teach you the basics.

Resolution: Growing Your Tester Community

How This Resolution Helps You

An active, thriving tester community guarantees meaningful and useful product feedback. It also means instant access to reliable, profiled testers that you can pull into projects for fast recruitment. And if they're actively participating in your community and projects, they're going to be more enthusiastic, natural users, which in turn promotes higher quality feedback. 🎉

How to Keep It: Use Test Platforms

Using test platforms to segment users within your community allows you to identify gaps in the audiences you need for testing. With segmentation on your side, you can proactively recruit customers, potential customers, or co-workers to fill those gaps, which speeds up your recruitment efforts (and makes securing targeted, relevant feedback much easier).

Learn more about the benefits a user testing community gives your program (and expert tips on building a thriving community) in this webinar from Product Director of Community Brad Day.

Resolution: Improving Your Test Processes

How This Resolution Helps You

In user testing, building reliable processes equates to more time saved, higher engagement, better quality of feedback, fewer delays, and more efficiency across the board. Processes also make it easier to track metrics consistently, which improves your program ROI.

How to Keep It: Automate Your User Tests

Automated user testing, also known as delta testing, threads best practices for keeping tester engagement high, streamlining feedback, and increasing project and program visibility throughout the entire process.

For example, delta combines machine learning with engagement automation to learn individual tester behaviors and reach out at optimal times. It uses an algorithm to filter feedback based on its priority to your stakeholders and popularity among your testers. And it consolidates everything into three easy-to-digest delta dashboards you can use to see how your project is running at a glance or drill down for more information. In short, it manages your processes so you can reap the benefits without any extra labor.

This ebook will teach you how delta testing works and how it transforms the processes and results of your traditional beta, field, and user tests.

Now Let's Hit Those Goals

Whether you've just started working on your user testing goals or you've had big plans for a while, our Centercode experts are here to help you accomplish them. Schedule a 30-minute brainstorming session with our team to talk about what you'd like to achieve with your user testing program, and we'll build a solution to get you there.