Guide to remote moderated usability testing
Every designer and product owner wants to deliver a best-suited product/service to their end-user that make users life easier and meaningful. And to do so, testing the product/service with real end-users is very crucial.
“You ≠ End-user”
Usability testing is a great way to gather feedback and insights from the end-users on the designed product/service. And to generate high-quality results from the usability testing, we have to plan and follow the entire process without cutting down a single step in it.
At the very first stage, you will need to decide which usability testing method is best for your product and that could be based on:
- Goals you want to achieve
- Resources you have
- Audience you want to test
In this article, I am going to share a few things that helped in conducting moderated usability testing remotely and the process starts with a planning usability test.
Planning a Test
You may need to do some research in the planning phase to get a more clear picture of testing and logistical details.
Generally planning includes:
1.1 What to test
- Shortlist the areas/pain points you want to focus on.
- List down what type of personas you want to test. As per the requirement, you can also be more specific on a certain segment of the persona. No. of users to test: 3–5
- List the right tasks for users to perform, don’t be biased here. Task listing should cover all pain point you wanted to test.
Tip: Keep the above details in front of a product team, stakeholders/product owner for their input, having the third eye on it always helps.
1.2 Logistical details
- Choose an online communication tool that has chat, screen sharing, and video & audio recording capabilities. Eg, Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, GoToMeeting, Join.me, Lookback.io
Ask participants for their preferred tool from the list to avoid tool learning.
- Decide the date and time of testing with participants.
- Shortlist moderators for the testing. (Types of moderator could be: Facilitator(if required), test conductor, observer, and note lister)
- Design content form for a test or you can use any template available.
1.3 How to administer tasks
- Make sure the tasks you are crafting are clear and simple to understand to the participant.
- Share prototype (If any) and task on communication tool chat window you have chosen. One task at a time to keep the participant focused.
- Ask participants to read the task out loud sent to them on the chat window. By doing so they understand it very well and practice speaking out loud.
Tip: If possible, have a dry run before test day to get an idea about the test environment. (With real users / team).
On Test Day
2.1 Remind users of test
Send out a reminder and instructions (if any) a night before or in the morning of the test. Prefer to send reminders on the same email chain used for an invite to keep it relevant.
Instructions that I send:
- Join the call five minutes early
- Have your laptop/mobile fully charged
- Use earphone/headphone for better communication
- Be connected to your network
- Tool instructions if any
2.2 Start the test
Once a participant has joined, run him/her through the following script that I usually use for a test, you can create your own if you want to.
- Hi [Participant name], thanks for taking the time to help us!
- I am [Your name]; I work for the company [Company Name] as a [Designation]
- I have some colleagues here with me on this call. They’ll be observing how you interact with the product to have a better understanding of product/service usability.
- Is it ok if we begin recording?
- [Wait for confirmation, then begin recording.]
- [If the participant has not already signed the consent form, perform the following steps.]
- [Share your screen.]
- [Open the consent form you’d like your user to read out loud.]
- This is a consent form that explains what we’re doing here today and how we will use the information. Please read this out loud, and then if you agree, please say your full name out loud.
- [Wait for reading and consent.]
- Please think loud as you use the product. [Show example]
- There is no correct or incorrect way to do things, so don’t worry
- If you ever feel stuck, please let us know
- [Turn presentation control over to the user, for them to show their screen.]
Tip: Don’t hesitate to ask for follow-up and clarifying questions.
2.3 End the test
Try to end a session on time, and if it is taking more time than expected, schedule another test for it. You don’t want users to be exhausted and give you wrong answers that they never thought of.
- Thank the participants for their help.
- Stop and save the recording.
- Check-in with your observers to discuss the major observations for that session, and any changes to tasks or procedures you’d like to make going forward.
Key Pointers
- Do not set any expectations around usability testing results. Things can go another way round. Simple interactions could be difficult for users.
- Analyze issues that came out of the test and rate them to plan.
- Once those issues are resolved the schedule a few more usability tests again. The number of users should 3–5 per test(after that you will see similar results).
Tip: Try to conduct usability testing after the development design review. You don’t want to promise something to users that is not possible to develop.
Usability testing is a must-have UX technique in the process for every product/service. It gives you a real and bold picture of product/service usability. Thanks for taking the time and read this article. I would really appreciate your feedback in the comment box below.
Here are a few references that helped me to start conducting remote usability testings and kept me motivated:
