Usability Testing, Web Conference Style

I recently had an old client in Chicago contact me to do a usability test for his Web site. Problem was, he had moved to Boca Raton, his partner was still in Chicago, and we had no idea where the test subjects would be located.

No problem, we used WebEx Meet Me Now to do the test via web conference. Meet Me Now is an inexpensive version of WebEx (about $50 a month) that allows you to do pretty much anything the more expensive corporate version does. (You don't have a whiteboard, but you can share your desktop and show a PowerPoint presentation there, or in our case, share a Web site.)

We did recruiting for the test with a contact in Chicago, set up a WebEx meeting with each recruit, invited client observers, and conducted the test without the expense of renting a focus group room, video equipment or usability lab. I facilitated the meeting from a test design earlier approved by the client. The test subject was asked to do browsing on the site for 15 minutes, then to do specific critical business tasks, then to answer marketing questions about their experience with the site and its usefulness and appeal. All I had to do was click the mouse button to turn over control of my desktop to the test subject so they could browse.

I used Camtasia Studio with a Planmetric headset and DynaMetric adapter (http://www.dynametric.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=5) that allowed me to pick up the teleconference audio and combine it with the video from the computer screen to make a video of each test subject for the client. This particular client didn't want it, but I could also have used Camtasia Studio to edit a highlights video from all the tests.

Easy as cake!
David Orr