Remote Usability Testing - Gains and Pains

Remote testing - now our bread and butter for cheap but productive means of testing users from various corners of the world and in any time zone. It ties up multiple geographies, time zones, people, and saves much on administering a usability test compared to the real test. Method to administer a test: - Users sit in a remote location, sometimes in a remote geographical location - We share the test application over the internet using webex or some other software - Users are given access to the application and they start using the application - Morae or a similar recording and annotating software runs locally in the base machine - Users are asked to perform a set of tasks and they are timed for those individual tasks - At the end they will be questioned on satisfaction and usability(use any satisfaction questionnalire like SUMI, QUIS etc.,)

Multiple challenges of a remote test: 1. The software that we use to share/record the desktop eats up humongous memory and slows down the system. 'Webex' is pretty good. 2. Users face huge system lapse and hence data input is delayed thereby skewing the actual time 3. Many users are not happy to work on 50 questions for satisfaction. Something simpler is what they expect The odds always exist and the workarounds get better everyday. So hope we find better solutions to get great usability test results.