Usability Lab Testing is hard to beat when it comes to identifying barriers to sales. Seeing your users behaviours as they use your site is enormously informative.
At Hawdale Associates, we call users in Usability Lab Studies ‘participants’ because the method was conceived in the 1970s in Scandinavia as part of a ‘Participatory Design Process’.
A few facts about this type of user testing that are not often clear if you have not seen one are:
- like market research, usability lab study participants can be recruited to any profile – demographic or psychographic.
- unlike a focus group, participants are talked to individually.
- usability sessions are run with the facilitator in the interview room with the participant, so that follow up questions can be asked directly.
- usability lab research specifically about behaviour, and so it is based in participants performing tasks.
- usability lab testing sessions are usually viewed using software rather than one way mirrors. We project the participants screen on the viewing room wall for the best possible visibility!
- because usability labs are run using software, they can be carried out pretty much anywhere.
- unlike market research, participants can be ‘led’ if it suits the objective of the study.
- usability lab research that is carried out in a ‘real world context’ e.g. on a home computer, is called Ethnography.
Contact us if you need to know any more about these studies, or get our free ‘Usability Research Guide for 2011′ to know how best to use this valuable technique.
Get your free ‘Usability Research Guide 2011′
"What methods and tools will give me a return on my research?"
This guide summarises the most effective ways that you can get an ROI from better understanding your customers behaviours.
