Articles : A Barebones Guide to Usability Testing :

Background

My inspiration for this article came from Macromedia DevCon 2002. I attended a session presented by Macromedia’s Usability Engineer Eric Pressman. Part of Eric’s presentation was on how he gathered user feedback for the Macromedia Pet Market Blueprint Application. The system Eric used seemed so simple, yet so powerful. I decided I would adapt this strategy and experiment with it on the next project I was involved with.

The basic premise behind this "poor man’s" usability testing involves using a specialized piece of software that records all user interaction on a computer. You can then walk the user through a scripted tour/test of an application and record their results. Beyond the actual screen capture, you can also capture an audio track of the usability test. The end results is you capture all of the basic data you would expect and could probably get by simple recording of user responses on paper. This basic data includes things such as: how long it takes a user to figure out your navigation system, how many times they click on the wrong link, etc. However, by using action and audio recoding software you also capture the little details that can end up being your most important finds. Little things such as mouse hesitation, gestures of frustration, and tones confusion in the users voice.

The software I choose to use for my usability testing is TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio. While I don’t want this article to sound like some kind of blatant advertisement for Camtasia (other software options to perform this type of test probably exist), I have to say I was very impressed by the power of Camtasia Studio for this task. Within moments of downloading the 16 meg 30 day evaluation, I had a notebook setup as a mobile usability testing station. It took some tweaking to end up with the optimal microphone and capture settings (I ended up opting for an external mike) but all in all it was a snap. I also found that an old P3 800 notebook with 8 megs of Video Ram would provide a workable frame rate, but it would be nice to have a little beefier hardware.

Along with ease of use, another feature I like with Camtasia Studio is that you can save your recoding in several formats that even include Flash. This makes it a snap to help share test results with others. In fact, I recall Eric mentioning at DevCon that he performed the Pet Market usability tests on the streets of Boston, and then along with a report on his findings, he would also post the result footage online as a .swf file for the remote development team to review. Technology is so cool!

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