Day 3 - User Research Remote Testing

This has been a very cool demo about remote testing - they didn't come in and say "hey this is the only way to do things". There's the capability of doing moderated remote testing and online cardsorting www.websort.net - pretty easy set up, take a look. And they weren't forcing their services down our throats - we could do this. And Morae is getting some good press here http://www.techsmith.com/products/morae/default.asp or go ask Doug he can tell you ALL about it.....

But interesting facts from the remote testing:

1) the users really talk - because they're on the phone they really do the verbal walkthrough much more readily. And they slam things much more readily too because they're not being watched.

2) for websites they're using a popup recruitment - "suprise" - but it means that they're getting people who aren't prepared (even for observation people 'prepare' themselves)

3) emotional attachment to the task (because they want to do it) and less of the "did I do that right?"

4) the analysis is nice because they use the representative sample in light of bigger metrics. So if 800 out of 1000 users all buy x on the site...when you sample12 users, and 6 of them also try to buy x...and 4 of those 6 say "I can't do this because of Z"...its a pretty compelling conclusion about what to fix

5) flexibility of it obviously (although can be clunky to set up for multiple observers) BUT here's a cool thing - if you're tapping into your target audience you might find that what you perceive to be your target audience may not be quite what you though...