- 10 Nov 2010
- 3 Comments
Senior stakeholders are busy people with some serious demands on their time. Now imagine getting these same stakeholders to take a half a day out of their hectic schedule to sit in a darkened room and listen to user testing participants find problems with their website, product or service.
No, neither can I.
So, they missed the impassioned pleas of the customers or that moment of insight about their customers’ latent needs and they just don’t have time to watch the video.
Sound familiar?
You had to be there …
We faced a similar problem in a recent project. After several iterations of wireframes and designs the a complete prototype was ready to be tested. What the project really needed was senior approval to move it forward. A written report, video clips and consultant time just weren’t going to be enough to convince.
But the senior stakeholders were not going to be able to take the time to visit user the testing facility. They wanted to view the tests from the comfort of their own offices.
Oh yes, the tests would be eye-tracked with Tobii equipment too.
Streaming video allows greater involvement for senior stakeholders<
Avoiding bias
Well, the Tobii eye-tracking equipment is portable and we have plenty of experience of setting up mobile test labs so we could have conducted the testing at the client’s offices.
However the prototype was at a particularly key stage of development and we had to avoid the bias that testing in the client’s offices would introduce to the research. That meant the mobile lab was not a good option.
Better than being there
The solution was to use our secure video stream to broadcast the user test sessions to the clients offices.
A secure login and live streaming means any number of people can join in and view the sessions remotely and that includes busy stakeholders too.
Once the sessions are over, the videos can be viewed online as often as you like for aslong as you like, so no waiting for DVDs or geeky downloads from FTP servers. All in all a great solution that enables the widest range of stakeholders to take part in a usability test.
Nice tip. What technology/service provider did you use to provide secure video streaming & the online archive?
I, too, would be interested in the tech/service provider you used to stream.
thanks!
Hi Sylvia,
Sorry for the belated replies, not sure how these have escaped so long.
In the past I’ve used a couple of options for streaming video securely. There are internet providers streaming like ‘Livestream’. We’ve bought private channels to provide secure streaming.
We’ve also used streaming software like QuickTime Broadcaster. QT Broadcaster is great as it’s free (for Mac OSX users) and highly configurable.
Another alternative is to share using services like GoToMeeting or Skype, great for working at smaller scales.
Hope this helps with your plans.
Walt
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