Infinite things about Remote User Testing
By: Somesh K S
Tags: Design Thinking, Remote Working, Design, UX, User Testing

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I know you know — I know you know

User testing is the last part of the whole UX design process which is used to gain insights, feedback, reviews from the target users while they use our product or a prototype. Usually, this session is done with a digital product such as an app/website.

During the months of May to July of 2020 (The year of Global pandemic ~COVID-19), we were building a digital solution to help local brick-and-mortar retail stores to revive their businesses and compete with e-commerce. One of the major challenges we faced were,

To find our target users and interview them remotely.

To test our prototypes every week to improve our product iteratively.

During this whole remote setting, I have conducted over 25+ User testing sessions from finding the right user to analyzing the insights. From which, I learned a ton about this whole new process, and I would love to share my learnings with you 🚀

Communication with the test user

Ask your test user to have a good internet connection before starting the session or else the conversation might not be very productive. Communicate about the type of device which will be used during the session, say if it’s a Web app that you are testing — Make sure to inform the user to have a Desktop or a Laptop while participating in the Remote session via Zoom or Google Meets. Sometimes, users might install the Zoom app on their mobile for testing a non-responsive web-app. Ask them to have a pair of wired earphones/headphones instead of the Bluetooth ones or the open mic to avoid echo issues. The most common troubles faced during the remote test session, User does not know how to share the right screen on Zoom. Send this video tutorial to them, before the test session. This will help you stay focused during the session (As a facilitator). Make sure to ask them to start sharing their screen first and then give them the prototype link to avoid their own exploration. If the test user is a non-native English speaker or not very comfortable with English — never ever take the session in English. It can take a different path in the emotional direction and communication during the session. If the user is using mobile data (Via hotspot) for the video call, ask them to configure their WiFi as a Metered connection which shuts down all the background downloads in Windows. My whole team has observed this, I don’t know if it’s true for everyone — Having an extroverted person on the session will really help you get more insights and thoughts about the product rather than having the introverted ones.

Instructions during the test session

Here’s the list of things which you should explain to your test user before they start using your prototype or answering your questions,

M OST IMPORTANT: Do not explain the product a lot during the session, and try to ask the user back what they think, how would they think that might work.

Whatever comes to your mind be it any crazy thought or feedback, if you speak out/Think aloud 🔊 it would be helpful for us to get your perspective better. I might ask you a lot of questions, but this session is about testing our prototype to gain feedback and insights from you, and not actually testing you ⌚ like any college exam :) There’s no correct or wrong answer, so feel free and comfortable to give candid or open feedback :) Just so you know, this is not an actual product but just a prototype 😁. Sometimes, it might not work as you were expecting it to work — you can always let us know if you think something might be wrong or did not meet your expectations. Tell the user that you have not designed the prototype (even if you have designed it), this will allow them to give more honest feedback on the design/UI, and the overall product. Or else, they might try to be nice to you, where you might miss some crucial insights. I may not assist you a lot while using the prototype, because in the real-world this product will be used without any assistance. And, we want to make sure that we build a great product. Do you have any questions before we dive-in?

Make sure they understood all the instructions before you actually start the session to get the best out of it :)

Tips for the designer in the team

Do not get emotionally attached to your prototype, I kinda felt rough while receiving the criticism or lots of improvements & suggestions. But, look at the bright side! Try having a Low-Fi prototype for initial stages of testing. This saves a lot of time to work on better ideas and brainstorming. Never turn-on the hotspot flashing while testing your prototype with an actual user. While testing your ideas, try spending more time in getting the overall flow and functionality of the prototype right instead of perfecting the minor visual design fixes. Try to emulate the entire journey from how your app/website gets discovered until the users’ problem being solved to get detailed insights on the user journey. Always stay in touch with your devs to get constant inputs about the interactivity and feasibility of your MVP prototype. Have an overall storyline for the prototype or the product to be tested during the User testing session. This helps your test user to get some context in understanding your prototype/product. Always have a hypothesis to test or a goal to achieve before jumping to the testing session. Establish more context for the testing session through the scenarios and tasks.

Additional test session tips

The more the user gets to know about the product, the better they learn and it becomes difficult to test with them again. So, feed them only with the information they to participate in the session with full confidence and understanding. Be precise with the target persona or the early adopters. You need not build a product that will be used by everyone initially. Let the user talk as much as possible during the session to get more insights.

BONUS

The remote test session always begins with a Google calendar invite, here’s a template which I used for inviting our test users.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/4044098346?pwd=UHFHeTZDNHBPTUY5UkE0dWMvV1p6dz09

Meeting ID: 404 409 8346

Password: 3jwRk9

Thanks for your interest in testing our product 🚀

To give you a bit more context, our team is from Digital Product School, Munich. We are a team of seven, and we are solving problems of local retailers at the moment.

I request you to have your laptop ready for the session and install the zoom app at https://zoom.us/download. And, please make sure you have wired earphones/headphones for this session.

If this is your first time participating in a User Testing session, don’t worry. It’s going to be super easy and fun 😀

Cheers,

Somesh K S

Interaction Designer at DPS