User based website testing – Really affordable, may be effective too
There is nothing that reveals the real user experience of your website better than observing users. As I have explained in my previous post on how we blame the website for all the failures. Also I explained various ways of testing the user experience.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is. The biggest difference is getting the right users to do the user testing. Also there is cost involved. Motivating someone to get into website testings was easy said than done. Methods that we followed to do user testing was community centered.
How we did user testing for our website at really low cost
We had big community support for our websites. We used to request them to invite their friends who haven’t used the site yet for a user testing session at their house. Then we provided them with the questions to ask and how to record the session. At times we advised them to use a free version of camtesia or similar application but most of the time they recorded it with a video camera. They then would notify us of the problems faced by a new person. We used to pay them some credit and some people used to do it for no charges.
Don’t have a community support for website testing? Try usertesting.com
How It Works
1. You sign up for user testing, specifying the demographic profile of your target audience, how many users you want, and what tasks you want them to perform on your site.
2. We notify users. Within minutes, representative users record their screen and voice as they use your website, speaking their thoughts as they browse. Who are the users?
3. You watch and listen to them use your site. Each user’s session – mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and spoken comments – is saved as a Flash video for you to watch.
4. You read their review.
* What they liked.
* What they didn’t like.
* What would have caused them to leave your site.
I got this mail from Steve of sensible.com
For the irresistible price of $19, they’ll have someone from their pool of usability testers spend 15 minutes doing a task or two of your choice on your site (or someone else’s), and send you a Camtasia-style screen recording, complete with think-aloud audio.
It’s hard to beat if you want to do a truly quick and dirty test of something, particularly since you can often get results back overnight. Literally, no fuss, no muss, and a price that makes it a no-brainer. (No, it’s not as good as doing a live test yourself where you can probe, but it can be impressively effective.)
After a year in business, they’ve come to the conclusion that their pricing was a little *too* irresistible. (Or, as the used car dealers used to say, “insane”.) They’ve just raised it to $29, which is still a steal, and hopefully enough to keep them in business for a long time.
For $29, is it worth it?
I haven’t tried it yet but I will say yes as you generally have to pay more than this for user testing. More importantly you will have to look for the right demographics. You can try http://www.usertesting.com.
Need something better for user based website testing?
If you need to get it done in more effective way then contact me, I am trying a simpler and cost effective way for my friend’s site using the application that might be running behind usertesting.com. (We technical people always look inside the kitchen of others)