1 Skype

Thanks for the ideas.

Skype has screen sharing now too. (There is a bug where the cursor blinks for some video cards, but I figure they will have that fixed soon.)

posted at 10:31 am on May 25, 2010 by ianlotinsky

2 The 3rd option

Very informative article,
I would go with the third option.

Thanks

posted at 02:59 pm on May 25, 2010 by wvector

3 Open Web Analytics

Also consider Open Web Analytics (http://www.openwebanalytics.com) if you are looking for a free open source alternative for user mouse recordings and click heatmaps.

posted at 06:52 pm on May 25, 2010 by padams

4 Great, thanks

Great writeup on user testing – Silverback has been my favorite, but now I have a whole slew of other applications to try out. Thanks (and thanks for the link as well!).

posted at 10:29 pm on May 25, 2010 by limedaring

5 Great post

This is a really great breakdown of a lot of different tools – sometimes it can get confusing out there with so many of them floating about, but as you rightly point out, in many cases they can serve a different purpose.

Personally I like the tools with a lower time commitment, but of course it depends entirely on the projects you are working on, and what kind of feedback you need to solicit.

I completely agree with your opinion about the paid panel kind of apps; I’ve always worried if perhaps those kind of panels aren’t a little self selecting.

The good thing (in my opinion) about tools like ours (I’m from http://IntuitionHQ.com) is that you can just send a simple 2 minute tests off to the sites stakeholders and get almost instantaneous feedback about which parts of the site are or aren’t working well, and then proceed to a newer, more usable revision.

Once again, thanks for sharing, very enjoyable.

posted at 01:03 am on May 26, 2010 by IntuitionHQ

6 Using Skype for remote website usability.

Hiya Nate.
Thanks for your overview. .. also nice to see another kiwi (intuition HQ) here reading your post.
I’ve recently run some sessions using Skype and wrote up a post to share my experience.
http://www.userexperience.co.nz/2010/05/skype-takes-the-hassle-out-of-remote-usability/
All the best … Nick

posted at 03:43 am on May 26, 2010 by ux.co.nz

7 Qualitative Research

Nate,

I enjoyed the article, thank you!

One more tool to add to Method #3 — Concept Feedback is a design review community where websites (or other designs) can be posted for free (after giving 5 reviews) and receive feedback from a community of 6,000+ designers and developers. Reviewers are not paid, they just choose to do it for the betterment of design I guess :)

Andrew

posted at 05:16 pm on May 26, 2010 by Andrew Follett

9 Netviewer

Hi,

Great article. We use Netviewer Meet a lot (netviewer.com). It is designed to give presentatons online, but you can hand over the desktop and take a peek at what the user is doing. We use a regular phone for voice. The VOIP in Netviewer is crap.

What is good about Netviewer is that it is easy to install for the user (actualy it is not installed sort of). And it works all the time, even behind the most bad ass firewalls.

Maybe it can wordk for you.

Cheers.

posted at 08:02 am on May 27, 2010 by vijfhoo8ter

10

The best think about this one is a HUGE amount of useful links. Thanks.

posted at 10:07 am on May 28, 2010 by Alexandr