Welcome to: Remote vs In-Person Usability Testing.
Usability testing evaluates a website or an application by testing it with
representative users. It helps us understand what users do, why they do it,
identify any usability problems, and determine their overall satisfaction with the product.
As a usability designer you already understand how important it
is to test early and often. Using a variety of testing styles and tools
during project development, ensurers it meets or exceeds your user's needs and wants.
Today we'll focus on in-person and remote testing by examining the
advantages and disadvantages of each.
While there are many different methods of usability testing, they all fall into
one of two groups: in-person or remote.
Anytime you have a user physically
present it's considered in-person testing.
Remote testing includes any tasks that take place without a usability designer present.
In-person testing is recommended because your moderator can observe and record
user's body language, gestures, and non-verbal cues.
Methods of in-person testing include contextual interviews, eye tracking, and focus groups.
Remote testing is ideal when it's hard to find the right test users, your budget is
relatively small, or when you quickly need to know the results.
Your remote tasks can be either moderated or unmoderated.
Advantages and Disadvantages.
While in-person testing requires more creative
logistics then remote testing, it also provides the more accurate and in-depth feedback.
Methods include card sort, prototypes, and focus groups.
In addition to measuring basics like where the user is clicking, in-person testing allows the
moderator to take note of physical, verbal, and emotional responses, which are
challenging to access remotely. During each of these tests the designer can
interact with the users and ask probing questions based on the results.
Some of the challenges with in-person testing are time, cost, and logistics.
It can take longer to set up and run in-person sessions so you're testing
time line needs to line up with the user's availability. Inviting users on site
for in-person testing can be costly. Compensation may be required for the
testing expenses as well as for the designers cost to arrange, test, and
compile the results.
Another challenge is logistics.
If your participants are scattered across the country,
it may be difficult to arrange travel to every location.
Remote testing is a more flexible and cost-effective alternative to in-person testing.
The tools include moderated and unmoderated tests.
During a moderated
remote test the participants are observed while they complete the tasks.
In an unmoderated test, the participants complete the test without any moderator interaction.
Some remote tools allow interaction with the user much like
during in-person testing. The remote testing options
track eye movement, record user's clicks when they navigate a website or mobile application,
and record a user's voice.
Some tools even track the cursor's path
and the time it remains stationary.
The disadvantage to remote testing is detecting user nuances.
Capturing body language and emotions can be difficult if not impossible during remote testing.
Nothing completely replaces seeing a user complete a task or navigate a
poorly designed website.
As a user experience designer you don't have to choose between in-person and
remote testing. You can use a combination of tests to get the necessary feedback
and save costs.
Take time to research available methods and find the ones that
fit with your design specs and budget.
Both in-person and remote testing
provides crucial feedback to any user experience designer.
You have completed: Remote vs In-Person Usability Testing.