This is a really quick blog post, it’s been far too long since I posted last and I am sure you are hungry for some more content. Recently, I have been conducting a redevelopment of migsolv.com and to help us design a better website for our users we asked users to test what they liked and disliked about one of the most successful data centre companies in the UK. It was quite interesting watching the videos back and listening to what they had to say, the people are very frank and straightforward and make it clear what is well designed and what could be done better. In this post, we share how you can get involved in usability testing as someone testing websites.
It crossed my mind, “this would be fantastic if I got involved with this, I wonder how you do it?”. After speaking with my boss about our own usability testing I asked him maybe I could do a bit of this usability testing, it would be both good for my wallet but also good for my knowledge too, designing websites, layouts and UX may help me in understanding what works well on websites and what doesn’t, effectively, making me a more critical thinker.
The website we used was usabilitytesting.com, a place where you get paid between $10 to $15 for each 10 to a 20-minute review of a website, mobile app or game, seemed like a great idea BUT there are over a million users already so the competition may be high.
The good thing about this though is that they take your metrics into consideration. So what you earn, your sex, age, earnings, ability on a computer, career and so on so that when someone wants to target a user they can do so and reduce the margin of who is going to review their web design.
Initial Usability Testing
When you sign up for usertesting.com you are given a test so to speak so that the owners of the website can see whether you are an ideal fit for usability testing. At first, it felt a little strange sitting in a quiet room talking to a computer, it took being a bit crazy to a whole new level but then after a while, you realise you are just thinking out loud and it becomes a quite an enjoyable experience.
You don’t have to have web design experience, Joe Bloggs to Bill Gates are all welcome although if you are a web designer or UX designer I can see it having greater benefit than simply extra money.