Customer Reviews

Beyond the Usability Lab: Conducting Large-scale Online User Experience Studies

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Large-scale usability testing is not new, but it's definitely become bigger and more important now than ever before. The reasons why it's becoming such a popular research method are many and are relatively clear: Cost-effectiveness, statistical significance, geographic coverage, etc. There are powerful tools being used by leading UX teams from top global brands using this method. However, still today many UX Pros are used to testing mostly in the Lab environment and in many cases are either intimidated by statistics or simply don't feel comfortable outside of the Lab or if they don't see the participant's face. In my humble opinion, this must change for the good of the UX industry.

Beyond the Usability Lab is both simple and amazing. What the authors have done is prove how powerful online usability studies truly are. It's an eye-opener for an industry (UX) in need for more accountability and credibility. UX Pros must back up their findings and conclusions with both qualitative and quantitative data, not just rely on what 5 users have to say about an interface.

Don't get me wrong: I think testing in the Lab is GREAT and I'm 100% sure that the authors think the same. But today's highly competitive marketplace requires UX Pros to go BEYOND THE LAB and have a versatile usability toolkit to truly understand and measure UX.

I've got to thank the authors (highly experienced UX Pros themselves) for their vision and the effort to push this research method. Much like it was with tools for Web analytics, online surveys or even Lab studies back in the 1990s (first rejected and then slowly being adopted by everyone), I'm quite certain that large-scale Online Usability Studies will become mainstream pretty soon.

I needed this book three years ago when I was designing remote unmoderated usability studies and analyzing the results. I figured it all out eventually, but now, after reading "Beyond the Usability Lab," I see where I could have done much better. Alas, there are no time machines....

"Beyond the Usability Lab" takes you through the entire lifecycle of an online study, from "do we need this?" and "what tools are out there?" to "how do I design this study?" and "oh no, what DO these thousands of datapoints mean?"

Also, although online studies are very valuable, the statistics can scare you off if you don't have that nifty experimental psych background. (Many of us don't.) "Beyond the Usability Lab," however, explains the math in clear, everyday language and even provides sample formulas and analyses.

If you're doing, or considering doing, remote testing, I strongly recommend that you get this book. It's a real keeper.

If you need to perform some remote usability, buy this book. The density of useful, ready to practice, information is amazing considering the volume.

This has been a valuable book in our ongoing usability research. We have a copy on every employee's desk.