At next weekend’s UXCampVancouver, Elizabeth Snowden will be giving a talk on remote usability methods. Check it out if you’re in the area!

Update: Sold out!

The NEOUPA event was great.  Lots of interest, lots of enthusiasm.  We had about 45 people there, even though it was our first event ever in Akron.  Usually, we’re in Cleveland and have a crowd of regulars that didn’t make the trip south.

And we got a few people a little mad because they thought we were dissing usability labs (which we weren’t doing) but they were threatened.  Aaron and I have both worked in several different labs over the years and we’ll continue to do in-person studies, but are big proponents of remotely moderated studies too.  I guess we made remote testing sound too good for their liking. Oh well.

As we put on our own remote usability training event (Escape The Lab and User Research Friday), we’ve also found that people accustomed to in-person lab methods can be skeptical about remote studies, often citing the inability to see the users’ facial expressions (an issue we address in our book, and also discussed here). We like riling the lab testing hardliners, even though there’s of course nothing strictly wrong with lab testing—lively debate about the pros / cons of each method is a step in the right direction.

Last week’s UX Brighton event, “Remote Research: a 360-degree View“, covered all sorts of fun remote user research tools and companies, including Webnographer (automated tool), Pidoco (wireframe testing), Flow (agency), and Ethnolabs (automated cross-platform data aggregation). Here are the best write-ups:

Steve Bromley:

In the heated Q&A session after, it was discussed at length that this should be used in conjunction, and not instead of face to face interviews, for it was agreed that remote usability studies cannot log or reproduce every element of a close personal study, you fail to see the emotions and reactions of the participant involved, and it’s harder to adapt the test to study interesting emerging behaviour variants.

Thomas Prior:

Altogether an interesting evening, and although I was expecting more of a knowledge share as apposed to product walk throughs, I will try to check out some of the more interesting applications such as Pidoco°.

We reply with our own thoughts in the comments. Check them out!

Date: Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
Time: 9am – 4:30pm. Sign-in starts at 8:30am, drinks and schmoozing afterwards
Place: Bolt | Peters User Experience at 60 Rausch St., unit 102, San Francisco, CA
More Info: http://escapethelab.com
Cost: $399. Register now (space very limited). 1/2 off for students and underemployed.
By: Bolt | Peters User Experience, the makers of Ethnio

Bolt | Peters Instructors

Cyd Harrell, Director of Research
Frances James, Lead UX Researcher
Nate Bolt, CEO

Who Should Attend?

Researchers, designers, and product managers who want to watch real people use technology from the comfort of their own desks. (While saving travel costs and the planet!)

What We’ll Cover

• Strengths and weaknesses of remote ux research
• Study design & scripting
• Participant recruiting options
• Moderating in the remote environment
• Tools for screen sharing, recording, and communication
• What can go wrong and what to do about it

What You’ll Take Home

• A Trapper Keeper full of script outlines, consent forms, and software comparisons
• A starter account for Ethnio online recruiting
• A coupon for 20% off our forthcoming book, Remote Research
• 15% discount on all Rosenfeld Media books
• A newfound confidence in conducting your own remote research!

Register now at:

http://escapethelab.com/register.html (Space is superduper limited.)
Hope to see you there!

Bolt | Peters User Experience