The problem with doing any mobile device observation is there is no way to see what's on-screen without an awkward camera or physically looking at the device's screen. That sucks because there is usually a participant who is right there trying to use t...

And here we have it - the basic state of remote research on mobile devices in 2011. That state is pointing webcams at cell phones - and it totally works. The cool part about this delightful post by Jenn Downs at Mailchimp is that they have users hug th...

My slides from the Design Research Conference in Chicago 2011

We're excited to hear that Usabilla is working on automated feedback from a Live webpage. This would make them the first to cross both "automated static" and "automatic live" types of remote usability testing. So far the only evidence is this tweet fro...

It's becoming increasingly common to want to talk to users of technologies in other countries other than your own.  Often times, this means communicating with people who are not native speakers of your language.  This can be a very challenging aspect...

Cool post on NPR.org on how Matt Gallivan used Twitter to recruit live participants by asking if there any iPhone owners in his area. Fun short read.

Back in April, I had a wonderful time giving a talk in Denver at the IA Summit on unmoderated remote usability testing. The feedback on twitter about the talk was great and I thank everyone for your kind tweets. Here are the slides: Collaging: Gettin...

Had a blast in Portland at the Webvisions conference. Great audience, fun crowd, and a huge thank you for all the incredibly nice tweets about my talk .  Here are those slides. Feel free to ask questions @boltron. View more presentations from b...

Video + Screen sharing is something we've been waiting for, in a way that only requires a browser to initiate, for YEARS. Looks like our friends at Citrix have done a spectacular job on this Beta of HD video webcam sharing along with GoToMeeting 5.0 w...

For the most part, there is no way to screen share from a stock iPhone, iPad, or Android phone for that matter. You would have to Jail Break an iPhone to get it to do screen sharing or screen recording, and for us lowly researchers, that is not typical...

Should be a fun one. First European workshop that Nate is putting on - at UX London Friday April 15th!. Will try and include a little more about general research ideas for folks without a lot of experience doing research, and some methods *other than* ...

Blam! http://bristolusability.ning.com/events/remote-testing-current

There have been quite a few posts from our brothers and sisters around the globe about remote usability and remote research lately. There are even claims that remote usability is BOOMING. You head it there first. Here we are: 3 tools that will fore...

The is the second time in three years I've seen a type of remote research that had nothing to do with interface design, but is totally inspiring and teh awesome. Coincidentally they both had something to do with Harvard. The first was the "track your h...

Check out this prototype of a JavaScript-based moderated observation tool by @davidvanleeuwen. Love this. It could replace GoToMeeting or maybe even be incorporated into something like Ethnio for quick direct observation?! If only there was an easy way...

There are a couple new remote eye-tracking services that have popped up. One we have seen actually work and seems quite credible - GazeHawk, and another which we got spammed emailed about but doesn't seem to be up and rolling yet  -  YouEye.  Say w...

If you're doing any kind of user research, you've at least thought about getting official consent from your participants. Perhaps you've got a signed piece of paper or verbal consent to record sessions, or maybe you have a team of lawyers following you...

Here it comes on November 19th, 2010 in San Francisco. It's the fourth annual and it's gonna be SWEET. Urfriday.com

Our fellow bay area local Brian McClain of Metric Lab has written a great summary of how to use un-moderated, AKA automated, AKA self-moderated, AKA UX tools, in combination with other methods and over long periods of time. Here is the whole article o...

This is the latest Bolt | Peters facilitator guide (AKA Moderator Script. Whatever) template. Janice Bradford was nice enough to read our book and reminded us that we promise templates on this site. Well here we go. The full text is below and if you wa...