UserTesting

I gave a try to the usability testing website, UserTesting.com.

I paid around $70 for three tests. The first test occurred within 24 hours, and the others 3 days later. Each lasted 10 - 25 minutes. UserTesting sets up their testers with screencast type software, and with the software is recording their session, they are talking about their thought process doing the task assigned.

Rdbhost.com is a site for programmers, to support programming efforts. I did not think I could create a reasonable 15 minute task that involved creating a program, so I described a simple database operations task; create an account, create a table, put some data in it. I required the testers already have some SQL programming knowledge. Despite the task being tangential to our core purpose, the tests were informative, if also humbling.

Some observations of the testers:

All accomplished the basic task, despite some inefficiencies. Each fell back on typing SQL into the sql box for data entry, despite the existence of a form to do that function. The SQL box is there as a do-anything catchall, of course, and it did serve that purpose.

One tester 'cheated' by visiting the site and looking at internal pages before starting the recording session. (link color betrayed him). All offered subjective commentary beyond narrating their problem solving process. The subjective criticism bothered me a bit, until I decided to just filter it out and focus on the observations.

Observations by the testers:

Rdbadmin javascript 'button' links did not look like buttons. Testers worked all around the 'new item' link, because it looked like a subtitle, rather than a link. I admit, my own tinkering with the page format a few days prior had busted the link display, and I had not noticed.

The profile page was not intuitive, and while all three found their way to the Rdbadmin, only one did so quickly. Only one of the three actually read help pages, despite their prominent link placement.

The general look of the site got some knocking, getting called a 'spoof site', 'dated', and 'powerpoint slide'.

Outcome

I have fixed the obvious problems, making the admin links look, again, like links, and adding description to the profile page links. I have some notes for a more pervasive redesign, in time, but the quick fixes improved the usability quite a bit.

UserTesting.com gets a recommendation from me. The whole system is slick, with very useful screencasts delivered for each tester, as well as summary analysis in prose.