ALM
QA Testing
Usability Testing Made Easy with UserTesting.com
It is relatively easy to customize your website as you see fit. It is not, however, easy to predict how visitors will interact with your website. That’s where UserTesting.com, a usability feedback service, comes in. UserTesting.com launched in 2008, but has recently added some helpful new features and a new homepage. The service gives you usability feedback by paying people to record their on-screen actions and voice while engaging with your site.
The new updates allow you to specify questions to ask in your post-questionnaire, instead of asking all testers a fixed set of questions. Owners can now ask follow-up questions as well, as another new feature. The follow-up questions are not paid for, but users typically don’t mind. By using UserTesting, developers can now use this feed back to improve application development processes and gain better results.
UserTesting has also facilitated the sharing of recordings process. Instead of sharing videos through a password protected page, you can now share recordings through a not-password protected webpage. Previously, if you wanted to share a video you had to share your password credentials with whomever you wanted to share with. This new feature will streamline the process of sharing and analyzing information.
The service is easy-to-use and relatively cheap. Each tester costs $39, with a $10 discount for the first three testers. To get started, sign up for UserTesting’s services and specify your ideal user with specific criteria. Write out tasks you want the testers to perform, then let UserTesting do the rest. The recordings will be sent back to you with users’ written feedback. It’s that simple!
UserTesting allows businesses to gain critically important customer feedback and insight. The best way to make your customers happy is to understand and give them what they want. UserTesting can help facilitate the process of understanding customer needs and optimizing product performance.
[Photo courtesy of nerdheist.]
