Does the world really need yet another book about usability testing? We believe it does as there are no books available that are focused solely on the very exciting realm of remote usability testing. Hopefully, by the end of this book, we will have convinced you too.
Please take the time to read this preface because we want to ensure that you do not go into the book with expectations that we cannot fulfill. We promise to keep it short.
This book is about remote usability testing, nothing else. It is targeted at anyone interested in understanding why remote usability testing is becoming more ubiquitous in the UX portfolio and how best to plan, run, and wrap up this type of study.
Some housekeeping before we dive in:
- In this book, we use the terms usability test, usability study, and UX study in the broader sense of user testing, which comprises evaluating product acceptance, the perceived value of features and functionality, usefulness, and much more, and is thus not restricted to the pure evaluation of ease-of-use.
- We use the terms product, interface, and digital interface interchangeably throughout the book when referring to the product under testing.
- Throughout the book, we refer to the person executing the study as the UX researcher. The person triggering the study will be referred to as the study sponsor. We understand that the actual setup of a usability test with regard to the involved stakeholders may differ from reader to reader. The person running the study may be part of the UX team designing the product under testing or an external consultant contracted only to run the test; the study sponsor and the UX researcher may be one and the same person, and so on. We will stick to these terms and you can translate them into your specific context.
- The book is tool agnostic. There are many tools available that support remote usability testing, but we do not want to recommend any specific software considering how quickly new, updated products are made available. We also believe that UX researchers should use the tools they are most comfortable and familiar with in order to be able to focus completely on the study instead of the tool itself.
That's all! We've had a great time writing this book, and we hope you find it useful.
Inge and Rebecca
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