Software evaluation is a lengthy yet critical process. You need to define the evaluation criteria, build an evaluation plan, conduct market research, get the software reviewed by internal experts or actual users, gather their insights, and manage multiple stakeholders.
Imagine tracking and managing each action item manually. You’ll probably miss steps and have inconsistent data. This will cause delays in launching your product.
Software evaluation templates can help you structure your evaluation processes better. They provide a standard framework for quality assurance, gauging user satisfaction, and testing security vulnerabilities.
Discover the critical building blocks of an effective software evaluation template and gain access to seven free templates to streamline your software launch or implementation process!
7 Free Software Evaluation Templates to Try Out in 2024
- What are Software Evaluation Templates?
- What Makes a Good Software Evaluation Template?
- 10 Free Software Evaluation Templates
- 1. ClickUp Heuristic Evaluation Template
- 2. Software Development Template by ClickUp
- 3. Software Integration Template by ClickUp
- 4. Software Change Log Template by ClickUp
- 5. Usability Testing Template by ClickUp
- 6. Usability Testing Plan Template by ClickUp
- 7. Excel Software Evaluation Template by pdfFiller
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat are Software Evaluation Templates?
Software evaluation templates are structured documents or frameworks for assessing software solutions’ performance, quality, and usability. They provide a systematic approach for project managers, software developers, quality assurance teams, and business analysts to evaluate software applications and ensure they meet users’ requirements.
Let’s say you’re developing a workflow automation software. A software evaluation template will provide a detailed checklist to ensure the software aligns with business goals.
- Does the software offer all required functionalities?
- How user-friendly is the interface?
- Does the software integrate well with the existing systems?
- Can it handle growing business needs and larger datasets?
- What are the security features of the solution?
- Is the software value for money?
- What level of customer support does the software vendor provide?
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Makes a Good Software Evaluation Template?
The 2024 Tech Trends Survey by Capterra revealed that 58% of US businesses regret software purchases made in the last 12-18 months.
To build a software product that truly meets your customers’ needs, you need a software evaluation template that helps you assess technical functionalities and ensure they align with users’ needs.
For product managers or software developers, this means focusing better on user experience during the testing phase. Here are the key capabilities you should consider in a software evaluation template:
- Customizability: It must be easily customizable to evaluate different software types
- Structure and clarity: The template must include clear sections covering relevant software evaluation aspects. It should be simple to understand, even for non-tech users
- Scoring system: The software evaluation template should have a consistent scoring system to rate software solutions based on various factors, such as UI, integration, and compliance
- Detailed criteria: There should be specific sections/questions for each evaluation factor to ensure a thorough assessment
- Compliance checkpoints: The template must include a section to verify software compliance with relevant regulations
- Stakeholder perspectives: Check if the template supports collaboration and seeking input from different stakeholders, such as IT managers, software developers, and end users
- Version control: The software evaluation template should provide a change log with the details of the team member who made the changes. This helps track new features and bug fixes
Summarize this article for me please10 Free Software Evaluation Templates
Here are seven free software evaluation templates to make comparing software solutions easy. ⬇️
1. ClickUp Heuristic Evaluation Template
Complex software can disrupt workflows, leading to errors, low productivity, and high training costs. So, the first thing to test before your software release should be—is it user-friendly and easy to adapt? To assess the quality of an interface, you can run a heuristic evaluation, a process in which experts apply established guidelines to identify usability flaws that can impact user satisfaction.
ClickUp’s Heuristic Evaluation Template makes this process smoother by providing your team with a detailed software evaluation checklist for reviewing the app interface and its quality—based on usability principles, industry standards, and client requirements.
Use this template to identify user friction, navigation challenges, and other inconsistencies in the software that can affect user experience before product rollouts. It organizes all evaluation information in one place and automatically creates testing tasks for new feature additions or improvements.
It helps tackle software development challenges by evaluating the most crucial aspects of usability, such as:
- Accessibility: Is the interface accessible to tech and non-tech users, including people with disabilities?
- Efficiency: How quickly can users complete their tasks?
- Clarity: Is the interface clear and easy to understand?
- Feedback: Does it leave room for customer feedback?
- Learning curve: Is the interface beginner-friendly?
- Navigation: Is the navigation simple?
- Error prevention: Are there measures to prevent users from making mistakes?
- Flexibility: Is it easy for users to switch between functions?
2. Software Development Template by ClickUp
If you’re looking for a single tool to streamline product development, design process, and testing, try ClickUp’s Software Development Template. It helps product, design, and quality assessment (QA) teams collaborate, build products, evaluate projects, and track software development KPIs.
Software development templates like this one allow you to create a dedicated space for product development. You can use this template to design product roadmaps, manage sprints, address feature requests, and track product releases using Agile, Scrum, or Kanban methodologies.
Here’s how the template helps:
- Product roadmap and backlog: View software deliverables and their current status, build roadmaps, intake feature requests and bug reports, manage backlog, visualize dependencies, and track timelines to keep stakeholders informed
- Design folder: Work with designers in a collaborative space where they can add and manage tasks, connect tools like Figma, implement review cycles, create the product’s functional and visual aspects, and document the right notes for each step
- Squad 1 (Scrum sprints): Use pre-built lists to plan, track, manage, and iterate sprints. Rely on team docs to standardize your product requirement and document roles and responsibilities
- Squad 2 (Kanban): Organize backlog items and update progress with drag-and-drop cards. Run daily standups with a pre-built board view and document process and project requirements
- Test scenarios and cases: Create task lists for your QA team to build and review test cases and test scenarios to track your test runs and logs
- Technical folder: Use pre-built bug forms to document potential issues and limitations and workarounds list to standardize bug reporting processes
3. Software Integration Template by ClickUp
ClickUp’s Software Integration Template is a handy tool for teams planning to integrate different software. It simplifies the integration process by helping you visualize the connection between different applications.
The Software Integration Template contains all the necessary integration codes, making it easier to maintain and update all applications in one place. You can use it to create integration-related tasks and assign them to team members.
The template also helps you collaborate with partners and suppliers, improving overall project cost and quality. Here’s how you can make the most of this template:
- Add the template to your workspace
- Create projects for each integration goal
- Assign and organize tasks using 15 statuses
- Collaborate with stakeholders to brainstorm
- Set up notifications to stay updated
- Monitor tasks to ensure maximum efficiency and productivity
4. Software Change Log Template by ClickUp
You may need to add or modify features in your software as part of usability testing. Logging these changes is essential for understanding how the software evolved during usability testing.
ClickUp’s Software Change Log Template simplifies this process by offering a dedicated space to document all software activities. This template can be a centralized record of your testing project’s updates, bug fixes, and modifications.
This template includes a centralized database, organized history, and a visual timeline to help manage the entire usability testing lifecycle.
Use it to:
- Track software changes step-by-step by creating custom task statuses
- Organize and categorize software changes with labels and attributes for better team and stakeholder visibility
- Enhance software change tracking using comments, automate creating test tasks, and more
5. Usability Testing Template by ClickUp
Is your product ready for beta launch? You can make it smoother with ClickUp’s Usability Testing Template. This whiteboard template helps you collect and organize product feedback and insights from user testing sessions. You can also use it to track usability test outcomes and plan iterations or improvements as needed.
Here’s how this template helps evaluate user experience:
- Identify areas of improvement faster
- Improve user experience by addressing the identified issues with specific Tasks in ClickUp
- Gather feedback on how users interact with your product
- Get detailed insights into the overall success of your product design
6. Usability Testing Plan Template by ClickUp
If you’re currently working on a prototype and want to know how users interact with it before the final release, it’s time to develop a usability testing plan. It helps identify user needs, potential pain points, and expectations early on, allowing you to create a user-centric product.
With ClickUp’s Usability Testing Plan Template, you can plan and organize comprehensive user tests. The template offers custom fields such as project name and description, team, test method, test lead, and test progress to sort data and focus on priorities.
Use this template to outline testing objectives, prepare resources, set testing environments, analyze data, and build customer feedback reports.
7. Excel Software Evaluation Template by pdfFiller
pdfFiller’s Excel Software Evaluation Template helps review software features, performance, and functionalities.
Let’s say you’re testing a code review tool with a user-led testing group. You can use this template as a checklist to help guide the users in evaluating the solution. This way, you’ll know how the software performs against the customer’s needs.
The template also lets users add images, highlight text, and leave comments. Once you receive the input from users, share the template with stakeholders to highlight the feedback. Here’s how to use this template:
- Set your evaluation purpose
- Collect necessary information about industry benchmarks
- Establish key evaluation criteria
- Test each criterion with users
- Summarize findings and offer product recommendations
Summarize this article for me pleaseStreamline Software Evaluation Process with ClickUp
Addressing user pain points and achieving a faster time to market are the two critical priorities in any software project.
To meet these priorities, you need an efficient software evaluation system to help manage evolving user requirements and stakeholders’ needs, assess user experience, and identify potential risks.
While it sounds daunting, you can optimize this entire process with ClickUp’s software evaluation templates. From streamlining development and user testing to detailed checklists for informed decision-making, these software evaluation templates can help with every aspect of software evaluation.
Sign up for free on ClickUp to evaluate software systematically and enhance user satisfaction.
Questions? Comments? Visit our Help Center for support.