Remote usability testing: A step-by-step | Maze

[Music] foreign in this video we're going to be covering how to conduct a remote usability test we'll go step by step through the process so by the end you'll be more than capable to start testing your products remotely I'm Hillary education lead at maze let's get started we'll Begin by setting out the basics of remote usability testing in short usability testing is about finding out how intuitive and usable your product is by asking test participants to perform certain tasks with the product and reviewing how it goes this can be done at any point throughout the

product development process and even after launch Remote usability testing typically takes place in Virtual environments with the test participants and the researchers in different locations this may be online through a usability testing tool which makes recording and analyzing the data a lot simpler but you can also do it without the help of a tool if you want to doing usability testing this way has a ton of perks like saving time and money through not needing to travel or rent equipment this in turn makes research a possibility for any organization regardless of what resources you have

available another reason a lot of researchers prefer remote testing is that it allows users to complete the test in their natural environment which decreases the chance of bias or outside elements influencing the results on a similar note doing usability testing remotely opens up the floor to including many more test participants both by allowing Global participation and by creating a more accessible inclusive test where you can involve people who otherwise wouldn't be able to attend in-person sessions if you're looking to understand the perks remote research or how it works we put together a helpful blog post

which we'll Link in the description so now we know what remote usability testing is let's get into how you do it foreign to run a remote usability test that gathers the data you need there's usually eight key steps which we'll go through today first up you need to Define your goals and evaluation criteria then you need to decide on your Technique and Method choose your testing tool recruit the participants write your test script and set the tasks conduct a pilot test launch the real thing and finally analyze your results let's get into each of these

steps in a bit more detail the first step is key to the entire process knowing your research goals and objectives this is a crucial step for any research with usability testing the overarching purpose is to assess the usability of our product but you need more specific goals for each individual test this might be related to certain areas of the product you're focusing on or specific statistics you want to track like testing the time to complete an onboarding process or assessing how easy it is for people to upgrade their account narrowing down your focus and defining

specific objectives you want to test is crucial otherwise you can end up testing everything and finding out you have a mass abroad but unactionable data at this point it's also worth linking back to your overarching project goals and remembering why you're here what's your product's purpose what problem are you trying to solve why is that important and how will your product do this at this stage you should also narrow down any metrics you'll be measuring think about what your evaluation criteria is and whether you want quantitative or qualitative data or both quantitative data includes stats

like completion rates and time spent on tasks and qualitative data includes more attitudinal details like opinions feedback pain points likes and dislikes usually you can collect both types of data with a usability test to help you make informed decisions if you're stuck on what to measure during usability testing check out our blog post all about usability metrics and what to look for next up it's time to think about how you're going to test we cover the different types of usability testing in our usability testing 101 video but let's go over them quickly there's three main

types of tests qualitative or quantitative moderated or unmoderated and remote or in person in this instance you've already made some of those decisions you know you're testing remotely and from step one you'll know whether you want quantitative or qualitative metrics or both that means you just need to decide whether you want a moderator present or not this will largely depend on what your goals are and what kind of insights you want to collect if you're focused on qualitative research and understanding how your users feel or what motivates them then having a moderator present to ask

follow-up questions or expand on answers might be helpful however if you're looking to collect hard stats on success rates when users use your product then a moderator isn't going to be as valuable it's also worth keeping in mind that while you may assume you can't have a moderator in remote testing that doesn't have to be the case moderators can still be present through a video call or screen sharing so this is an important element to your usability test then going remote doesn't have to change that once you've decided on moderation you can consider what method

of usability tests you want to use each method falls under the types above and can provide a different kind of data and insight into your product remote usability testing typically involves asking the test participants to complete a series of tasks using your product but you may also want to consider other remote usability methods like phone and video interviews session or screen recordings first click testing and eye tracking these can often be available within an online testing platform so it's worth deciding if you want those features before choosing your platform especially if you want to keep

your tests contained to one space speaking of testing platforms step three is time to start thinking about what you're going to use to run your test the majority of remote usability testing takes place through an online research platform like maze choosing to task through a platform has a lot of advantages from easier setup and testing to Quick analysis and access to insights remote research tools can also come with a ton of built-in features like participant recruitment quick build tests and templates follow-up questions and automated analysis of results when looking at the different tools out there

there's some key things to keep in mind think about your evaluation criteria what are you measuring and does the tool keep track of that think about your testing method can the tool test in the way you want it to some tools are better than others depending on your method and think about your participants certain tools include things like participant recruitment pre and post-test interview functionality and even participant screening so it's worth considering a tool that can help with reaching the right users Now's the Time to find the people who are going to test your product

these people should reflect your target audience so it's important to be deliberate in how you recruit there's lots of online recruitment tools out there and there may be one built into your testing tool you can also go old school by putting out advertisements or recruiting from people you know or an existing user base when it comes to thinking about who you're reaching out to keep in mind that you want participants who reflect your entire user base it's easy to fall into the Trap of targeting people who reflect your ideal user or match your main product

Persona and while that's usually where you start with recruiting participants don't forget about also's testing with secondary personas and outliers people who may not be the target audience but end up using your product too this means thinking about who your primary audience is involving them in your test and also intentionally recruiting people who fall outside of that but would still interact with your product it's also important to think about diversity you want to make sure your product serves the needs of all the people using it which means being intentional about diversity while recruiting this might

mean advertising in different places seeking out test users from certain marginalized groups or backgrounds and ensuring language or imagery used in the test is inclusive by testing remotely you've already opened up your research to a wider group of participants so don't stop there now you've got your goals method and participants it's time to write the script and set your tasks a script is a go-to when running your usability test it's what you'll follow throughout the study and helps guide the session in what you'll be asking participants to do including main usability tasks and any other

questions having a script that you can stick to is essential as it helps ensure all tests are consistent for each participant that you don't miss anything and that your test results remain unbiased when planning your usability test and writing the script we suggest breaking it down into four sections an intro where you introduce yourself to the participants and explain what's going to happen background questions to better understand your participants experience motivation and Nuance of why and how they'd use the product then you have your main tasks which make up the bulk of the usability test

and finally you've got to wrap up the study where you can ask any follow-up questions about the test or gather feedback about their experience when it comes to setting your tasks you should include clear instructions on what participants are being asked to do remember you're trying to replicate real Behavior so include tasks which mirror realistic user goals the tasks you set will depend on your research goal are you trying to see how well a specific feature Works review how findable certain information is or something else for example if you're testing an online shopping site you

might ask users to find a white T-shirt and add it to their shopping cart you'd then be able to review how easily people can navigate the site find what they need and use the functions available like adding to a shopping cart if you are testing a new phone maybe you'd ask users to navigate to the phone settings section and change the display language some other tips to keep in mind when setting your usability tasks are to not go overboard as you might overwhelm users and skew the data stick with a maximum of eight tasks and

avoid telling them how to complete it or any tips on the path to take it's also important to think about your language the smallest difference in word choice can create a lot of nuance impacted decision or confuse someone this isn't a marketing description of the product and it's not a detailed how-to you want to see what real users do when left to their own devices so keep language and instructions clear and simple writing the script and tasks for your usability test is one of the most daunting elements but done correctly it can make a huge

impact on the smoothness of your study and quality of your research so it's worth taking the time to do it properly step six on our list is to run a pilot test this is a really important step and can be easy to miss if you're short on time but it's crucial to ensuring your usability test is unbiased and easy to understand think of this as a practice stage find someone who's not familiar with the product like a colleague friend or family member and ask them to run through the test as you would the real thing

doing this is a good way to check your instructions make sense that the testing platform works as expected and that you haven't missed anything from your script most usability testing tools allow you to do a dry run by yourself or delete sets of results after the test but you can also create a copy of your project and test through that link to avoid the pilot results impacting any real data the next step on our list is the shortest but most exciting it's time to launch your remote usability test if you're using a moderator then you'll

be in the thick of it capturing data in the moment and observing how the tests go you want to stay on top of any results that come in and depending on whether you're analyzing ad hoc or waiting until all participants have completed the test you may want to start reviewing the results until then keep an eye out for any participant questions and keep note of how the test is going any things you change for the future or any general observations so sit back and watch the results come in and of course we can't finish that

analyzing the results there's lots of types of analysis and we as researchers prefer to reflect on their data but there are a few things to keep in mind start by organizing your results the simplest way to do this is by listing out each issue you encounter during the test along with details like where when and how it happened next you'll want to prioritize issues based on their severity not all issues will be as important for example a typo isn't as urgent as an error message when trying to check out your shopping cart it's worth ranking

your findings so you can classify them on their impact and how quickly they need to be addressed once you've got your results organized you can discuss them with your team this might be a face-to-face meeting or by surfacing a results report which shares the data and key takeaways or actions this last step is really important as it's super valuable for everyone on the product team to have access to the results so they know the context of what they're working on and what they should be working towards okay that's it for our eight steps to conducting

a remote usability test we hope you found this video helpful and are now ready to conduct your next usability test if you're looking for more info and guides on usability testing then check out the links in the description for all the Articles mentioned in this video plus our Ultimate Guide to usability testing see you again soon [Music]