Availability test assistant-Application of Morae Software

Usability testing is one of the common research methods in daily projects of the user research department. The general process is as follows:

Through usability testing, researchers can sort out some problems existing in the product and help the demand side improve the product accordingly. The demand side can directly understand the user's predicament and find a solution. Therefore, usability testing is of great value for both the Problem Discovery and demand side improvement products. However, during the test, some "other" factors may lead to discounts for our testing results.

Researcher:

"The content quickly recorded on site contains both observed and user representations, which requires separate sorting, which is time consuming"

"I need to review the video to locate the problem. I 've dragged on this section many times before I can find the problem"

"I don't know what's wrong with the device. I didn't even have an audio recording. What did the user say ?!"

......

Demand side:

"I can't see how the user operates. How can I know what went wrong? If I could share the user's operation interface on my computer"

"I was very excited to hear this question from the user, but I haven't remembered it yet. The next question came out again. During the test, I felt that I missed several important questions"

......

The rapid and effective production of test reports is very important to both researchers and the demand side. Sometimes the inability of devices to provide and the complexity of data sorting in the future is helpless. Fortunately, there are already a variety of software that can help us better implement usability testing, such as javasstudios, usabilityware, and Morae. One of the following describes how to use the Morae user experience software.

Morae and well-known camtasia screen recording software originated from the same company, all developed by TechSmith in the United States. Morae can not only record users' behaviors, but also monitor and Mark key moments in the process. It can also help in data analysis and result reporting in the future, which helps improve work efficiency, suitable for researchers in projects.

Morae is divided into three major components: Recorder, observer, and manager. recorder is the screen recording component used to record user operations and must be installed on the user's computer; the observer is a component for the observer to use. It can be installed on the observer computer, while the manager is a component for later data analysis.

The usage relationship of the three major components is: after the recorder and the observer establish a network connection, the recorder is responsible for recording user operation videos, and the observer synchronously displays user operations and can mark them at any time, at last, Recorder's screen recording and observer tags are combined and saved, and the data is analyzed through the manager to quickly generate charts and form a research report.

The following uses a virtual project as an example to describe how to use the Morae tool to help us complete the project faster and better.

Virtual project:As a requirement, a product Team asks researcher Xiao A to investigate the new interactive demo version of the product. According to a's analysis, this project is suitable for usability testing to evaluate the new version. After finalizing the purpose and focus of the test, Mr. A recruited several qualified users and designed the usability test task. In this project, Mr. A decided to use Morae to help him better complete the test.

I. Before testing

After determining the test task, Mr. A created a research architecture through recorder, one of the three major components of Morae.

In recorder, small A needs to set recording details, study details, and video and audio sources.

1. recording details

You can set the recorder's storage address, record time, and other details. For the configurable content of each option, see.

2. Study details

Study details is the core content of recorder. It contains four tags: Description, task definitions, maker definitions, and survey definitions.

2.1 Description: This is an introduction to the research project and will be displayed on the recorder homepage.

2.2 task Definitions ), you can specify the settings here. After the task is started, the guides are automatically displayed. After you finish the task, you only need to click the "finish" button to automatically jump to the next task. In a small project, you do not need to be fully automated. You can set tasks in a targeted manner.

2.3 maker definitions: The Mark function can be used to improve the efficiency of recording events. Through the custom tag function, you can quickly record the event type and occurrence time during the observation and testing process (observer side), so that you can easily trace back the problem. If you need to mark it after the test, it can also be done in the Manager.

2.4 survey definitions: this feature is ideal for usability tests that require questionnaire filling during the process. In the test of small A, after each task is completed, the user is asked to score the satisfaction of the task process. Therefore, he added a satisfaction questionnaire under this label and set it to automatically jump out of the satisfaction questionnaire and ask the user to answer the question after each task is completed (the user manually confirms the completion of the task.

3. Video and audio sources

After the preceding settings, Mr. A starts to set video and audio sources. Recorder supports two video sources and can set the primary-secondary relationship. Mr. A sets the main screen as the user-operated interface, and the picture-in-picture screen as the external camera. The picture is the user's expression (only when the user's consent is obtained can the image be taken ). The microphone audio is also valid.

In general, Morae recorder can fully automate the test process. Even if no researcher is present at all, the user can complete the test task as prompted, but to what extent the automation is required in the actual project, A comprehensive evaluation is required.

After the recorder is set, you only need to click the Red Circle button in the upper right corner to start recording the screen. If you need to stop the screen, press the blue button.

Mr. A thinks that many demand sides want to see the user's operation interface and decide to use the observer to view the user's operation. First, install the observer on the corresponding computer. Then, enter the IP address of the computer where the recorder is located in the default pop-up window, and enter the code of the recorder in this observation.

After the connection, the following interface appears. As long as the recorder starts to record data, the observer can view the record information synchronously.

Ii. testing:

After the recorder is connected, each observer on the observer can tag the object. The tag can be exported separately or saved together with the recorder screen recording data. Note that you must return to Recorder's recording details to set the tag permission.

The observer can exit the connection at any time without affecting the recorder operation.

Iii. After testing:

After the availability test of Six users is executed, Mr. A starts to analyze and statistical data with Manager. Small A opens the New-project, enters the project name, imports the RDG format file saved in the recorder (the Morae specialized format), contains the observer mark data.

The Manager contains three function labels: analyze, graph, and present.

1. Analyze

You can perform multiple functions, such as playing, editing, and marking. Here, you can review and organize the test process to obtain valid data.

2. Graph

Data can be made into charts, such as the duration and completion rate of different users to complete each task.

3. Present

You can add previous data or images to the slides to quickly and concisely complete the test report. Of course, the slides here are far less powerful than PPT, and can only achieve the most basic settings.

Iv. Summary:

Through the virtual case, we introduced some basic applications of Morae In the availability test and made a simple summary.

Morae contains three major components:

The recorder component can set the entire research architecture and record the tested audio and video materials.

After the observer component is connected to the recorder, the video/audio of the recorder can be synchronized and marked at any time during the process.

The Manager component can be used for subsequent data analysis and Quick Production of simple test reports.

In fact, Morae is very powerful and can implement more complex settings. At the same time, it is also widely used in a wide range of fields, in addition to availability testing, other research methods, such as focus groups and deep visits, can also better record and analyze the entire survey process through Morae.

This article is only for reference. The specific application of Morae is expected to be gradually explored in actual use. Thank you!

Attached with a trial version of Morae, free trial for a month: http://www.softonic.cn/s/morae

References:

TechSmith Official Website: http://www.techsmith.com/morae.html

China agent Web site: http://www.snagit.com.cn/morae.htm

By Steve Krug, the people's post and telecommunications Publishing House, the magic hand rejuvenation: Guidelines for testing and optimizing website availability