Back in college, I fell in love with user testing. During my college days, I had numerous jobs, from the shop assistant, receptionist, to working at a print office. When I joined a marketing agency, I started to have jobs that were in a way connected to my future profession. I did them all: from shooting photo and video to web design and animations, but there was something about user testing I was instantly hooked on. It was challenging, focused and based on data.

In college, we used to do user testings, and I learned a lot from them, but we never did them remotely. At Five, working with clients worldwide, remote user testing is a necessity, because they are quicker, cheaper, and simpler, and overall, you can get users feedback in just one day, which can speed things up on a project.

On the other hand, in the onsite user testings, which we also do regularly, you have to set up a research lab, and that, of course, requires more of your time.

So, here are a few tips on how you can make the most of the remote user testing. In this example of remote usability testing I used an online tool usertesting.com and prepared a prototype in Invision, but the logic of this can be applied to almost every tool out there.

If you want to get good feedback, you should first define objectives, so you know your focus while creating prototype and script for a usability test. While doing a study, bear in mind that test should take 15 minutes. After defining objectives, you will probably create an interactive prototype.

Questions like: “I don’t like the design”, “I don’t understand what this “box with the x” means” or “I would like to see more color in your app” is every designer’s nightmare. To avoid this type of feedback, it would be great if you could create a high fidelity prototype or even include design so that participants could feel like they were in the real app.

Preparing a prototype

While preparing a prototype and the script, bare in mind that you can’t guide participants if they go on the wrong screen or tap where you didn’t expect them to. That’s why you have got to make sure two things:

a) Don’t put too many hotspots on one screen.

Having too many hotspots could cause participants to become lost in your prototype or start answering questions which aren’t related to that screen. The tester could tap something by accident, or they could be curious and tap to see what that is and then go to a screen where you thought they would not go to. Also, they could go to some screen and believe that they are on the right screen and start answering the question which isn’t related to that screen (I am going to write about how you can avoid this below).

Keep the prototype simple, and include just screens which are necessary for the test you are creating.

b) Check sharing properties.

When you are copying the sharing link of your prototype, check your property twice, so participants can’t swipe between screens or see hot spots on screens. Forgetting to check the properties might confuse participants, so they could become lost, or you could show hot spot which participants had to press.

PREPARING usertesing.com session

Recruit participants you need

Start the test with one participant, and set the general audience settings and platform which you want to test.

If you want more qualified participants for your study, you should add a screener question (just for premium accounts) with multiple answers, add right and wrong answers, so participants who select correct answer are going to participate in your study.

Note: if you test a mobile prototype with the similar flow on two mobile platforms, run at least three tests for each platform, but if you are testing flows which are different, then it is best to run five tests per study.

Introduction to session

Create a mindset which will help participants to use your prototype (in other words give them context). With good prototype introduction, it should be easier for participants to interact with prototype because then they shouldn’t be confused when the first screen appears.

Write a short introduction. What kind of product is it? What is the scenario what will they have to do in the test? Let them know they will be interacting with an early prototype and that some functionalities are not going to work.

Set your tasks wisely

I like to begin the test with an open-ended task. For example: “Please describe what you see on this screen and what you think you can do.”. I find this task useful because participants can see for themselves what they can do here and where are they, and I can observe if they get the right picture. Also, they always give some ideas what I should test next.

Here is my formula for the specific tasks:

1. Introduction

This is the place where you ought to tell the participants:

i. Do they have to interact with the prototype or should they just answer question verbally?

ii. Which screen should they be on?

iii. What should they do in the previous task, so they will know they are on the right path?

2. Tasks or subjective opinion questions

Keep tasks simple and bear in mind:

i. Write one question per task if participants have to interact with the prototype.

ii. Write a note to participants if you don’t want them to interact with the prototype in that particular task.

iii. If some task is not useful for your objectives and hypotheses, you probably don’t need it.

iv. When you have task where participants have to tap on something specific like “search” icon, don’t expect that everyone will know what that icon looks like. In that case, describe the shape, color and the position of the icon/button on the screen.

3. Call for the next task

Here you should give users a clue that they should go to the next task

TASK EXAMPLE:

Imagine that you now want to set a budget for this month.

Please go to where you think this should happen.

When you reach the place where you think you will set a budget, please continue to the next task.

(NOTE: Please do NOT tap anything else.)

Post-test questions

Since you can’t interact with users during the test, and ask them why they did something, this is the place where you can get their thoughts about the whole process or a particular feature.

Ask them what they would want to change or improve if they could (in other words, give them power). What do they like the most in the whole process? Don’t forget to ask them why they like or dislike something.

While reading their answers, don’t forget that they are paid for testing your prototype, so some of the participants will not be 100% honest.

Additional notes

Of course, before you run the test, don’t forget to check spelling, grammar and check all tasks and prototype. The safest way to check your test is to show it to someone who will go through testing. After that run, just one test, check participants’ feedback and see if you should change something in your test.

In the end, it is important that every task is clear and that participants know how to interact with your prototype. Believe me, you don’t want some participant to get stuck on screen not knowing what is expected of him.

Please, share your experience with usertesting.com or some other remote usability testing tool. I am curious if you think that participants on usertesting.com are enough advanced users?

Hope that some of this tips will help you in your next usability test.

Thank you for reading. If you like the article, please click the little empty ❤ below and make it red — it would really mean a lot to me. :)