Although the audience of websites is global, the most common ways of user research are spatially bound, and confined to a research laboratory. This is in direct contrast to both the global spirit of the web and the random selection of people who view a website or online application. Tonights talks will show how you can use online methods for carrying out usability research at each stage of the design process.
Remote usability applied – A case study by Louise Klinker
Louise will discuss how she used a remote research tool on a recent design of a job website. She will demonstrate how the research findings were used to guide concept development and the final design.
Louise is a User Experience Consultant at Flow Interactive. She has worked for some of the leading companies in design and research, including Mollerup Designlab (DK), live|work, and of course Flow. Bill Buxton said in ‘Sketching User Experiences’ that “Louise can hold her own with the best of them”. She has worked with clients including The BBC, Sony, The Guardian, The Foreign Office, BUPA, Tesco, Nokia, Sky and Shell.
The Birth of an Idea – Remote Ethnography by David Tait and Ofer Deshe
Ofer and David will take us through a journey from initial concepts through the design of a new remote ethnography web service. The service is a new framework that enables easier access to contextual research and includes data capturing technologies such as smart phone apps, an online web diary, email and social media integration. Additionally, the framework includes a number of built-in qualitative analysis tools. Analysis is conducted in real-time allowing ongoing monitoring of behaviours in remote locations and contexts.
Ofer works as a Principal Consultant at Flow and has led numerous user experience research, design and strategy projects. David is an innovative computer scientist with expertise in designing knowledge, customer insight systems, and search algorithms. Prior to working on this service, David designed a search interface for a financial trading solution and a Mandarin phonetic search algorithm.
Testing the Prototype – Synchronous Remote Testing by Volker Gersabeck of pidoco°
Volker, who is coming all the way from Berlin, will show off the next version of pidoco°. Pidoco° is a web-based software suite for prototyping and testing. It allows for live-collaborative designing a prototype, which is instantanously available on many devices (desktop, mobile, etc). Built around the prototype are different ways for collecting feedback from all the different stakeholders. With the new version comes a module which allows for moderated remote usability tests with zero set up cost.
Volker co-founded pidoco°, and has been leading its development since the first line of code was written three years ago. He also co-organised the UXcamp 2009 in Berlin, and is already planning a European one for next year.
Testing the Product – Asynchronous Remote Testing by Sabrina Mach
Sabrina will present Webnographer, a tool for un-moderated remote usability testing, which enables fast and cost effective testing of any website with participants across the world. She will show how Webnographer can be used to inform the design of your website, how it benchmarks performance, and how to gain insight into user behaviour through the different reports that the tool offers.
Sabrina is co-founder of FeraLabs, a usability consultancy specialising in remote user research. Using Webnographer, Sabrina helps clients understand their user’s behaviour, providing them with formative insight for design teams, as well as summative results for benchmarking website performance.
Sponsors
We’d like to thank our sponsors who have generously offered to cover the, not insignificant costs of venue hire, chair hire/delivery and refreshments.
Book your place (on eventwax.com)
