Establish a dedicated group of community members who have consented to participate in unmoderated usability testing and more intensive research activities. By identifying these participants in advance, you can streamline your usability testing workflow and ensure high-quality results.
Participant Training - Digital Experience Testing Video
Need to show participants what to expect when they complete an unmoderated usability test? Download our how-to video and add it to the beginning of the survey using a Media Player element. Participants can view the video and learn how to complete an unmoderated usability test step by step.
Benefits of identifying usability test participants early
Creating an on-demand usability testing segment offers several advantages:
- Reduce participant attrition: By mentioning the nature of the activity in the invitation, you reduce "camera shock" when participants encounter Recording actions in the survey.
- Maintain data hygiene: Instantly identify video-ready members and flag high-quality participants for future activities.
- Set clear expectations: Participants in this segment understand that these activities may take longer than a standard 5-minute survey.
- Motivate with targeted incentives: Highlighting higher rewards for these tasks boosts the likelihood of participation.
Establishing your usability testing group
Screening and finding participants is the first step of the unmoderated usability testing workflow.
Think about your community as a whole and the diversity it represents. Chances are that some members are better suited or more willing to participate in usability testing than others. It's a good idea to identify who those members are before launching your usability test. That way, you have a group of members whom you know you can engage for initial and subsequent usability testing.
When you're putting together your usability testing group, think about their availability, willingness, consent, and aptitude at this sort of testing.
- Have they expressed interest in participating in usability testing in the past?
- Do they consent to being recorded?
- Are they comfortable with verbalizing their thought processes out loud?
- You already have lots of information you can leverage for screening: Profile variables, data from past activities, information from third-party systems that has been added to the Alida platform. Having an insight community means you are not starting from scratch with screening. Review what you already have, what you can leverage, and where you need to fill in the gaps with your screening survey.
- When you are screening for your usability testing group, consider what combination of answer choices will ensure that you include, rather than exclude contributors. Erring on the side of including rather than excluding people can help you ensure that your participants represent all of your key user groups.
Authoring screening questions to establish the usability testing group
To find the right participants, you should include specific questions in your recruitment or welcome surveys for new members. For existing members, a different approach is required.
-
Soft opt-in (recruitment survey)
Use a high-level question to gauge general interest and set expectations. Store the response as a profile variable by using a Profile action.
Example: Suggested Question
From time to time, we conduct Interactive UX (User Experience) studies. These are special tasks where you might record your screen or speak your thoughts aloud as you use a website (list any other use cases) to help us improve it. These sessions often offer incentives (recommend stating the type of incentives).
Would you be interested in being invited to these types of activities?
- Yes, I'd like to be considered for these.
- Maybe, tell me more when the time comes.
- No, I am not interested.
-
Capability check (welcome survey)
For those who opt in, use a follow-up question in the welcome survey to identify specific technical capabilities. This allows you to flag members who can do audio, video, or mobile.
Example: Suggested Question
You mentioned you were interested in Interactive UX (User Experience) activities. To ensure we send you the right UX activity for your device and comfort level, please tell us what you are comfortable with (check all that apply):
- Webcam & Screen Recording: Recording my screen and my face/voice while I navigate a website or app.
- Live Video Call: Participating in a 1-on-1 or group session with a researcher.
- Mobile Testing: Using my smartphone to test apps or mobile sites.
-
Approach for existing community members
Since existing community members don't redo the recruitment survey or welcome survey, you can ask the suggested questions above in:
- A re-stage survey (where they complete a newly revised recruitment survey again)
- A standalone survey
- The last section of a short survey
Include transition text to indicate a change of subject.
For more tips on authoring screening questions, see Writing effective screening survey questions.
Flag your usability testing group with profile variables
Once you've screened for which community members are ideal usability testing candidates, flag them with a profile variable. This will make your usability testing group easily identifiable later. As time goes on and you distribute more usability testing activities, you can also use profile variables to flag your usability testing group by experience level.
To make your recruitment survey and welcome survey data actionable, map survey responses to specific profile variables within the application. This allows you to create member groups for new projects in seconds.
| Profile Variable | Profile Variable Values | Description | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| UX_Participant_Status |
|
The profile variable values are mapped to these answers from the
soft opt-in question:
|
General filtering for usability testing invitations. |
| UX_Capability |
|
The profile variable values are mapped to these answers from the
capability check question:
|
|
Example: Creating a member group
When a stakeholder says, "I need ten people to test our new mobile checkout via a recorded video session," your member group filter becomes:
-
UX_Participant_Status is Opted-In
AND
-
UX_Capability is UX_Screen_Share AND UX_Mobile_Tester
AND
- UX_Trusted_Tester is Yes
Screening for a specific usability activity
When you're screening for participants for a specific usability activity, think about the activity's goal and target audience. Be as specific as possible when you're answering these questions.
- Are they available to participate during the timeframe the activity is open?
- Which demographics are you trying to reach?
- Which tasks do you want your audience to complete?
- What is the desired timeframe for task completion?
Based on your answers to these questions, you can formulate a statement (for example, "We want to assess the usability of our product for 50-60 year old customers to complete checkout within 3 minutes"). This will help guide your research and analysis.
Educating and enabling your usability testing group
For many community members, usability testing is a completely new experience compared to survey responding. Certain steps may surprise members while they are setting up their screen, camera, and audio recordings, making them more likely to disengage. They may forget to talk out loud while completing the task. The prospect of appearing on video may intimidate them if they are not feeling or looking their best.
- Provide as much information and detail as possible. For example, "We would like to see how easy or difficult it is to find a specific shirt on our website. As you're navigating through, we'd love to hear your thoughts as you go so we'll be asking you to speak aloud to share what you're doing and why, and what you think of the experience."
- Sometimes participants hesitate to provide a video response if they don't feel good about their appearance or their environment. Inform participants that before the usability test, they can fix themselves up, tidy up, or move to a different room if they want and come back another time when they feel camera-ready.
- At the end of the explanation, say, "Ready to try it yourself? Click Next." Add a Recording action and Usability Task question after that.
- In the Usability Task question text, include another reminder to speak out loud during the exercise so that it stays visible and onscreen.
Incentivizing participation
To ensure the long-term sustainability and high quality of insights from your usability testing participants, we recommend establishing an appropriate reward system. While usability tests are inherently engaging, the increased time commitment and depth of thought often required for activities like screen recording can lead to participant burnout over time.
Consider these options for incentivization:
- Use incentive programs like Virtual Incentives or BHN to offer a fixed incentive.
- Contact your Customer Success Manager to learn more about Alida's managed incentive offerings.
After you have found your participants, the next step is authoring your usability testing activity.