Technology’s moving fast, isn’t it? Too fast for natural and effective mobile usability testing solutions to be on the market for the increase in apps and mobile sites we are seeing. Taking inspiration as we go, and getting as close to natural behaviour as we can, we are building the Dream Mobile Testing Rig. This blog is about that journey and will help you to understand the pros and cons of what is out there when choosing mobile testing solutions.
There are many types of mobile usability testing rig, how do you choose?
11th November 2010 saw World Usability Day being celebrated around the world. We took part by hosting a design competition on World Usability Day’s theme of “Communication”. We had an amazing morning with the kids from Royal Mile and Niddrie Mill primary schools. In the last month they have built their prototypes following user centred design principles, and after a round of testing at the Bunnyfoot offices they have made all their changes and were ready to put their ideas to a panel of judges.
Prizes up for grabs were:
Best Presentation, Most Usable Device, Most Innovative Device and Most Realistic Prototype.
Today the UK Drivers Standards Agency (DSA) announced that there will be a new ‘independent’ driving section of the driving test. This will be 10 minutes in the driving test where the test candidate will NOT receive step-by-step instructions from the examiner, but will rather be expected to drive unsupervised and without prompting.
Road safety minister Mike Penning said: “the independent driving assessment gave test candidates the chance to show they have the “necessary skills to cope with the sort of traffic conditions they will face every day”.
Making it real is a good thing!
A good move we think – in testing anything, whether it’s a person’s skills or the usability of a website, it is important to make the test as close to reality as possible (some term this ‘ecological validity’ we just say ‘making it real’). When we do lab based usability testing or testing in the field we always strive to make it as natural as possible, and amongst other things this includes avoiding giving prompts or directions and just letting the person get on with what they were doing without interruption.
How far will they go in making it real?
The driving test candidates won’t be penalised for getting lost and can ask for help with directions if they wish – they are being examined not on their navigation (thank goodness otherwise I know many people who would never pass) but how they drive by themselves. It will be interesting to see how far the examiners will go in making the testing more realistic – for instance will they allow sat navs? - if so, would the candidates be penalised for swearing at them (as often seems to happen somehow in my car)? And what about screaming kids, and argumentative spouses….?
Tom aged two and a half plays teletubbies – video from 2004 – see if you can see his choices before he makes them – simple demonstration of the power of eye tracking.
This is my son 5 years ago – and my favourite demo ever of eyetracking – I use it all the time and must have show it hundreds of times now – time to release it to the wider world to view. Read the rest of this entry »
We developed ‘mass user testing’ in response to the real world needs of commercial clients and to combat the deficiencies inherent in the most widely used traditional usability testing methods (we have actually been doing this for about 4 years but formalised it last year).
The key to mass user testing is using large numbers of people rapidly and cost effectively – this is achieved through recruiting people ‘off street’ with the lure of some cash (or other incentive – we are quite creative in this regard) for about 15 minutes of their time. Read the rest of this entry »
I am often asked how the eyetrackers work (second only to why the name Bunnyfoot?) – so here it is – in essence it is really simple – a digital camera videos your pupils (the holes that let light into your eye) and a computer works out where you are looking based on the video images.
Well there is a little bit more to it than that (not much though):
The infrared diodes shine light on the person in front of the eyetracker (it’s 14 times less strong than that emitted from a TV remote – so doesn’t burn their eyes out).
During 2005 one of the many interesting projects undertaken by Bunnyfoot included a large scale usability test of a new Microsoft website. Read the rest of this entry »
How do you choose between different creatives? It helps greatly if you can get answers to the following:
Is the creative going to make consumers look at the brand and the product?
Which creative will have better brand recall?
Which creative has the clearest marketing message?
Under realistic circumstances will the key messaging get through at all? Do they get the message from the limited time exposure? Read the rest of this entry »
