[Sigia-l] Where Can You Rent User Testing Labs

[Amy Kahn]

I'm really enjoying the conversation that's going on regarding remote
usability testing. I've been doing it for years, and find that it has a
number of advantages, such as larger test audience, wider variety of
data, and is often much cheaper than hosting a group at your office.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned a free solution to accomplishing
the communication needs of such a task. Rather than using voice
conferencing, I use a text tool like IRC (Internet Relay Chat) in order
to communicate steps to users and get feedback. For years I've used this
tool for remote usability testing, and it has worked out beautifully.

IRC has many features that work ideally in this situation. It's simple
to monitor many conversations at once, as well as retaining a larger
chat space where all the testers may interact with each other. Its
subject feature posts a subject line across the top of the chat space,
and is quickly changeable. It is simple to use its most basic commands,
and is text based, so it doesn't weigh users down. It is available in
windows and in Linux/Mac, so it's portable. And it doesn't require
massive amounts of bandwidth. It also has logging features that can't be
beat.

There are a number of IRC clients out there, as well as ready-set
servers. Usually a list of IRC servers is available when you get the
software, though if you feel the need to do something more secure, you
can start your own server and direct users to it.

For Windows:

Bersirc is my favorite Windows irc client. It's simple to download and
use, and is well supported.
http://www.bersirc.com/

Macintosh (for 9 and under):

This is a site that will lead you to a number of mac irc clients
http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/mac/

Linux:

Linux comes with XChat, which is a fine, if not overly featured
application. XChat also works with other Unix distributions, including,
if I'm not mistaken, MacOSX.
http://www.xchat.org/

One more wonderful thing about IRC...it's free.

Enjoy!

Amy Kahn
home: (617) 879-0064
1572 Beacon St, Apt 2
cell: (646) 234-8109
Brookline, MA 02446

http://www.amykahn.com/

"Things should be made
as simple as possible,
but not any simpler."
-Albert Einstein