When participating in user testing, people will often attempt to increase their effort in order to appear more skilled whilst knowingly under observation. The awareness that participants have of their actions being observed can be distracting for them, and has the potential of providing us with inaccurate data. To reduce the likelihood of this effect occurring, a number of actions should be considered. Where possible, observers should watch the session from a different room to the user, and recording equipment should be subtle. This way, participants are less likely to focus on being watched (they will probably even forget that they have an audience!), and will therefore act more naturally.Furthermore, reassuring participants at the beginning of the session that it is the product being tested, not their knowledge or ability should help them behave more naturally.
When users access a website or an app on a mobile device, they usually want to accomplish a task. This may be a broad task like browsing a news feed, or a specific task...
Research has shown that 40% of users will leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. There are a few methods we can employ to mitigate this issue....
