Remote research tip #4 do a ’tech check’

The last couple of weeks, many things have changed quite rapidly. One of them is our beloved face-to-face user research. It’s simply not possible anymore to dive into our labs and chat with people about their digital experiences. However, user research should still be your top priority. The show can go on. Be it remotely. Remote research is just as valuable, it just comes with it’s own set of challenges. So it’s important not to dive in blindly. We’ve collected four simple crutches for you to help you get the most out of your research.

 

Tip #4

You’ve made your material accessible, you picked the right tool, and included your team. Now you have to make sure everything (the technology) will work. One of the downsides of doing remote research, is that something can easily go wrong with the technology. It is crucial to test and experiment with your setup for a couple of reasons:

 

  • Practice makes perfect. Make sure you become acquainted with the tool so that you will use it properly during the test. 
  • Test your prototype. To know how the tool and the tested material will react to each other. Not all types of prototypes will work on every tool and a prototype, website or app might look or perform differently on different devices.
  • Give a detailed explanation to the participant. To make sure that the participant will understand what to do. Particularly for remote unmoderated sessions, you will not have the possibility to explain the tool, tasks, or questions.
  • Have a dry run with a colleague. A practice run with a colleague allows you to adjust technology and other factors as needed, before launching the study. Furthermore, you should have a back-up plan ready for when technological mishaps will occur.
  • Check participants beforehand. Do (or let someone do) a quick test-run with each participant a day prior to the session. This allows you to check whether the participant has everything set up properly and prevents you from finding a technical issue while observers are watching you struggle. It also gives you time to find another participant in case the test run fails in one way or another.

    4 crutches for your remote research
    #1 Make your test material accessible
    #2 Choose the right tool
    #3 Include your team
    #4 Practice using the technology

     

    Remote UX research without the hassle 

    Want to do hassle-free remote research? We’d love to help you out with both tooling and participants. We make sure you can focus on what matters: your research.