The EchoUser Experience

I’m running a stealth usability study for an iPhone app at the moment, and we’re on a tight 4 week RITE (Rapid Iterative Test and Evaluation) schedule.

For those not in the know, RITE is a way of condensing the usability and design prototyping process into a short time frame.  Instead of testing a dozen users in one big batch, writing a report with design recommendations, submitting the report, making some of the design changes (or not), and then starting the testing all over again, RITE lets us do the same thing in about a month. We test 4 users every week instead of 12 once a month; we make design changes on the fly instead of waiting for a report to be produced; we get all the stakeholders involved so things can happen today and tomorrow, instead of next week or next month.  In many ways, RITE is the way that usability - and design more generally - should always be done (in my opinion).

One of the problems with RITE, however (and there are a few, believe you me) is that recruiting users becomes a pressure-filled activity. Instead of having weeks to schedule participants, fill in missing slots, etc., we have days to schedule people, sometimes only one day.  For example, I scheduled 2 users yesterday for a session today - pretty nuts if you ask me.

But this entry isn’t so much about RITE, or how to test an iPhone app, or why an external USB camera doesn’t play nice with live streaming and a screencast - I’ll get to all these issues in good time. No, this time I want to focus on a particular user (who shall not be named for obvious reasons), and how persistent she was today.  If any of you live in the Bay Area you’ve probably heard that the Bay Bridge is closed, which is wreaking havoc on…well, just about everything.  And this poor user-who-shall-not-be-named made a valiant effort today to get across said closed bridge, only to spend another hour and a half trying to get into town from the East Bay.  She finally gave up when she realized that making the session would mean leaving her daughter stranded at school without a ride.

So to every user who has ever spent an inordinate amount of time getting to a session, all in the name of a better product, I salute you.

Sometimes I come across positively delightful tidbits as I trawl the web, and this one, the “coming soon” page for Hosteeo, totally got me.

Nice look and feel? Check.

Mystery? Check.

Sense of being privy to something secret? Check.

Provides me with a way of finding out that secret? Check again.

All in all, a pretty effective way of getting my email address - but more importantly, my attention. Thanks to Chris Spooner for finding this gem.

…so why am I testing in a cave?

I’ve spent the last week conducting user testing on a top secret product ::: shhhhh! ::: from one of the tech majors down in Silicon Valley, and as a result have spent a lot of time in doors. Actually, so much in fact that I totally missed last Thursday’s glorious weather, only to emerge at 6pm with rings around my eyes, sallow skin, and a distinct fear of sunlight.

Joking aside, it did get me thinking about how we test participants with products.  Ideally we’re trying to recreate a lab environment for focused testing.  The theory goes that a dark, windowless room will help people focus (or keep them from being distracted, which are totally different things), or that it accurately approximates an existing work environment.

But everyone knows (here, here, and here) that the windowless, cubicle-warren approach doesn’t do anything for worker productivity, creativity, and ultimately, happiness. And yet Ux labs the world over have to adhere to the lowest common denominator, because let’s be honest, Ux labs that look like this are a long way off.

So if we agree that we should be moving toward a more open work environment, and it’s something we’re striving for in our day to day work, how does this translate (if at all) into product testing? And if we do agree to push the open workspace revolution, is the Ux lab as we know, love, and hate it: dim, confined, and with that cool two-way-glass, on the way out?