Get rid of your expensive UX lab
A few weeks ago, we were preparing a design sprint together with Zeewaardig Service Design. Doing interviews, analysing the data and maybe the most difficult part, getting the whole team together. It is still quite hard to ensure that team members are able to join for the full five days. Luckily, all participants were able to get rid of all meetings and empty their agendas. But then we realised that we did not have a fancy UX lab within our office to perform the user research on Friday during our sprint.
So, what to do? All companies where I earlier joined design sprints had quite fancy UX labs, full of high tech stuff. Unfortunately, we now only had two separate rooms and a few laptops. How are we able to share the complete interview from the test room to the observation room without all this fancy stuff?
The livestream experiment
We thought of using livestreams, so the Twitch experiment started with using OBS Studio. All Smiling Gents colleagues were curiously watching what we were doing and even joined our livestream. Unfortunately, our Wi-Fi connection did not like the amount of data which we streamed. Therefore, the quality of the video and audio was very bad. Conclusion: OBS Studio in combination with Twitch was not the best solution.
The almighty Skype UX lab setup
Time for a new experiment. This time we used Skype because we wanted to make use of highly available lab elements since everyone should be able to make a UX lab which includes a test and an observation room. We ended up with the following ‘lab’ necessities:
- 3 Skype accounts
- 2 laptops (we used MacBooks)
- 2 smartphones (we used iPhones)
- Smartphone tripod
- iPhone lightning cable
- QuickTime Player
- Big screen or Beamer
During our experiment we tried several setups but we found this the most suitable:
The test room setup
The basis of the test room forms a MacBook to which an iPhone is connected by a lightning cable (only needed when you want to test a smartphone app). By using QuickTime Player and its Movie Recording feature you can display the iPhone screen on your Mac. Subsequently, you have to put the second smartphone on the tripod and ensure that the respondent and their interactions with your prototype are visible. Now you have to start a Skype call with the second smartphone and the laptop in the observation room and share the screen of the MacBook in the test room so the people within observation room can follow the screen interactions with the test smartphone.
Set up the observation room
In a separate room you have to set up the observation room. Use a big screen or beamer to ensure all observants are able to follow the interview within the test room. Moreover, you can use external speakers if necessary.
The last step is organizing the Skype screens to create the best possible view for the observants.
The benefits of using Skype as UX lab tool
- Made with highly available elements so everyone is able to use this lab setup.
- You can setup this lab everywhere provided that there is an internet connection.
- Due to the use of Skype the observation can be done from everywhere in the world. It is even possible that a part of the team is joining from another location.
- The lab is made of low level technical stuff. This makes that people are not impressed by the ‘professional’ look and feel of the test room. They easily forget that they are joining a test within a UX lab.
Good luck with your lab setup! And of course, let us know if you have any improvements on the above setup. Always good to add the experiences of others so we can collaborate on the best possible and easily available UX lab!
