Remote Usability Testing

The diffusion of screen sharing software and remote control applications is slowly changing how usability evaluations are conducted because usability experts can now interact with users geographically distant and with different cultural backgrounds. Moreover Internet and fast broadband connections strengthen the ability to deploy high quality videos and makes user observation more accurate for usability evaluators. With this premise we can define remote usability testing as a technique that exploits the user (home or office!), transforming it into a usability laboratory where user observation can be done with screen sharing applications. Conducting a remote usability test is not so different from taking a classical usability evaluation, but there are some facts that have to be considered prior to beginning the session regarding: * Participants recruiting * Environment setup * Test execution Participants recruiting Participants to remote usability testing can be recruited through any channel used for normal usability testing, but surely the cheapest and fastest method is using online questionnaires. The online screening in fact, permits the selection of users based on detailed criteria such as job title, annual revenues and geographic location. An important remark to consider in the recruiting phase is to ask participants about information regarding their internet connection and also about their knowledge of screen sharing and remote control applications. Normally, this phase can take three or four days to complete if the questionnaire had to be prepared from scratch, but it is a good habit to reuse old screening questions adapting them to the current situation thus reducing effort to only one day. Environment setup Remote control software has to be prepared both for the usability expert and for participants. While setting up the application for the usability expert can be quite simple, installing and configuring the software for the users can be more difficult if they haven't any knowledge or experience for this kind of program. During recruiting it is also a good idea to send to participant a little document explaining in a simple way how to configure their computer and how to set up the application for the usability session. Another solution is using collaborative or conferencing services like WebEx that permits meeting with anyone, anywhere in real time over the web. Cost for this service has to be taken into consideration if budget for usability tests is limited. Test execution Conducting a remote usability test is not so different to conducting a usability session in a laboratory. Dialog with a participant is performed through the phone or even using chat and messenger applications, if in this way users can feel more confortable or misunderstandings can be avoided if working with participants in foreign countries. User interaction can be viewed in the facilitator monitor thanks to the use of screen sharing capabilities peculiar of this kind of software. In all cases user interaction has to be recorded for future reference and analysis. Some studies (for example Interno Tredici Menghini Calderon Fabrizio Antonio is an IT engineer that actually works in a web agency located in Rome, Italy, where is responsible of usability, human factors and information architecture and also is in charge of developing web sites and web applications using CSS, XHTML and PHP.

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