LIVE from Web 2.0 NY Expo Wed - On Demand User Research

On Demand User Research

Nate Bolt

It used to take days to set up a single day of product usability research. Between the manual labor of finding and qualifying users, organizing the process, and finally moderating and analyzing sessions, it was one of the most time-consuming and expensive tasks in interface development. With the creation of web-based tools for user research, there is now an abundance of ways to quickly observe and gather real-world behavioral data from users. Unfortunately, there is also an abundance of ways to collect garbage. We’ll cover a fast overview of the tools and methods that are worthwhile, the five basic categories all UX research tools fall into, and the right way to use these tools. Detailed info at http://remoteresear.ch

- Combine online methods... or die.

- Time is everything. - asking people who are about to buy vs asking people who may buy but not in a near future makes a big difference

- Can tools make us a better researchers?  YES. Example - GoToMeeting, self moderated like usertesting.com, etc.

Recruiting options

- Grab someone in the hallway

- Grab someone who isn't directly involved in your project

- IM your friends

- Tools:  Ethnio, Ads, Recruiting agencies, Customer Email lists, UserTesting.com, etc.