This evening I attended UX Brighton for the first time since moving to (and starting work in) Brighton this summer. A glance through some past events looked promising; some real experts in the areas of usability and user experience have taken time out to share their knowledge with others at this regular free event.
This particular session focused on remote user testing and its benefits (plus a few drawbacks). Since the web is accessed beyond the confines of our studios or cities, so the users of the websites we build may be spread geographically. Not only may their locations be diverse, their skills may also range considerably. This is where remote testing can come into its own, allowing us to sample a wider audience to test our work and often at a lower cost than traditional on-site testing.
We were in quite an unusual venue this evening. Due to high demand the location had changed from the iCrossing offices on Black Lion Street to The Old Music Library, a sorry looking building with plenty of character currently being used as an art gallery. The distressed look coupled with a lack of heat or built-in lighting was quite a novelty!
Remote Ethnography with Ethnolabs
First up were David Tait and Ofer Deshe of Ethnolabs showcasing their research framework of the same name, an application allowing group access to aggregated user-research supported with built-in analysis tools. A useful way of collating user testing results from various sources along with the ability to tag and group feedback, It is clear a lot of thought has gone into creating a product which fulfils the need to categorise diverse analysis. Of the applications on show tonight it appeared to have the most obviously useable layout, letting information take priority.
Pidoco° – Remote wireframes
Volker Gersabeck was next to present, showcasing Pidoco°. There are a number of solutions already available to aid the creation of website wireframes, but Pidoco° takes this a step further by allowing user-testing within the same application. Wireframes are created using an intuitive drag-drop interface with prototypes available instantly for user testing. One particular feature I like is the hand-drawn appearance of element outlines. I have always felt this to be one of the advantages to paper wireframes; the client expectation is that this is a ‘rough’ guide with the focus clearly on the user journey. Live prototypes which lack detail often confuse; their delivery on screen coupled with clean geometry can make it difficult for (perhaps poorly briefed) clients not to focus on appearance, or the lack of it. Pidoco°’s jagged lines help support the ‘rough-cut’ nature of this project stage, which is a neat touch.
The newly created prototypes can be tested within minutes once a connection with the remote tester is established via a number of devices including iPhone. Another key feature is the ability to update prototypes on-the-fly. Client doesn’t like that navigation on the left? Switch it to the right and get it signed off mid-session. A great looking (and reasonably priced) application that is well worth checking out on trial, or taking advantage of the UX Brighton attendee discount.
Webnographer – remote testing in detail
Our final product overview was from Sabrina Mach who took us through the detailed workings of Webnographer, a more traditional user-testing suite which has some nice touches. Focusing on unmoderated testing, Webnographer is designed to be used within the participants own timeframe, allowing them to pause proceedings and carry out the test without supervision online. The metrics it tracks are detailed; time spent over inputs, number of clicks and timings between actions are just some of the data it collates in addition to pre-defined feedback requests.
Flow case study – Remote usability applied
Louise Klinker of London-based agency Flow was last up, demonstrating the process she was involved in while using remote usability testing for a redesigned recruitment website. Due to confidentiality reasons Louise was unable to divulge the name of the client (the website was due to go live today), so Flow were unable to show detailed examples of how the testing was applied to this project which was a little disappointing; it would have been nice to end the evening looking at some real-world examples and successes after a number of application showcases.
A run through Louise’s workflow gave us an insight into the practical ways Flow applied testing to this project. Of particular interest were the detailed user profiles created to represent various possible visitors, even down to assigning them fake names and appearances. Refreshingly, the whole company was invited into a sketching session to put together these make-belief users which were then worked up to create detailed online personas Flow would attempt to develop around. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see the final project, but I’ll be keeping an eye on their blog for an update!
Altogether an interesting evening, and although I was expecting more of a knowledge share as apposed to product walk throughs, I will try to check out some of the more interesting applications such as Pidoco°. Look forward to the next event!
Hi,
a nice review and thanks for mentioning us.
We’re constantly working on improving our product. We continue to test different ways for our GUI prototyping tool to offer top-end features including remote user testing. I hope that you will have fun and put pidoco° to good use, in case that you have any queries, let us know, we’d be happy to hear from you!
Best,
Tino
pidoco° product managment
PS:
For a no-obligations 31-day FREE trial go to https://pidoco.com
Thanks for the recap! I noticed that these are mostly are asynchronous / automated tools and services—they collect information from the user automatically, without a moderator communicating directly to a user. I work for a UX firm specializing in remote research, and we actually prefer conducting moderated studies by using remote screensharing tools to observe and record participants while they use their own computers. The benefit to this is that you’re able to ask questions and probe on different behaviors right as they come up, which provides lots of good qualitative feedback. We’ve often found that automated methods can come up short on providing insights into why users do what they do, how their activity fits into their larger goals and activities, and unexpected behaviors and usages of the interface.
We’re coming out with a book on remote research methods pretty soon, so check it out if you’re curious!: http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/remote-research/
@Tino – Thanks for the reply. You’ll be glad to hear that we have started using Pidoco° on a trial basis at Makemedia after seeing it at UX Brighton; so far so great. We can see it saving time spent making HTML wireframes, plus the clear benefits of testing on-the-fly.
I’ll let you know if we have any queries in the meantime.
@Tony – I have to agree; most of the methods explored at this UX Brighton event are a one-way process (althought Pidoco° works two-way, but is at the wire-framing stage). At Makemedia we currently use a solution such as yours, but we have to be at the same geographical location as the user. We film their reactions and encourage them to communicate their feedback constantly. If they run into trouble we are available instantly to prevent time being wasted.
As Louise from Flow said last week, it can be difficult to imagine how user testing without the opportunity to converse fully with the participant can yield as informative results as asynchronous methods. However, as I discussed in the post above, geography and cost can make these solutions more viable depending on the situation. The methods we currently use are proving incredibly beneficial to our workflow and we would always undertake some kind of user-testing in this way but perhaps supplemented with more automated testing when required.
A remote screen-sharing solution would probably be the next natural progression from our current methods, and I will certainly let our usability guy know about your forthcoming publication (and I’ll make sure I take a look too!).
Tom
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