I went down to Microsoft’s RedWest campus during my lunch break today to participate in some usability testing for one of their Mac products. It wasn’t anything particularly difficult or even that exciting, but it was neat being invited to give my input on one of their products.
The usability research experience is quite interesting. The whole thing takes place in two rooms. The research subject is in one room with a computer, choice of keyboards and mice (some Mac users really like the one-button mouse), a microphone, and whatever paperwork is needed. The research engineer is in an adjacent room that is filled with video and audio equipment for recording the research session, a computer that can control the user’s computer in the other room, and a window that looks into the research subject’s room. That window is two-way when you first get in there, but, when the session begins, it becomes a one-way window. If the research engineer hadn’t been as nice as she was, it definitely would’ve felt like some sort of interrogation session.
The actual usability testing is pretty straight-forward. The engineer walks you through the different tasks and asks questions along the way, and you do the tasks and provide feedback as you go. After going through the software, the engineer asks you some more questions about the experience, and you’re free to talk about anything you didn’t mention during the testing session. Once that is done, you fill out a few forms with additional feedback on both positive and negative reactions on the product.
The whole thing took me just over an hour to do. Overall, it was pretty cool. I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about usability issues for Mac software (read back through some of my old blog posts for a few examples), and this is the first time that I got to do it in an official capacity. I’d definitely be interested in doing it again.
My reward for participating in the usability research was a copy of Office 2004 Professional Edition for Mac. I picked it from a relatively sparse list of gratuity items that included everything from Microsoft Office products, keyboards and mice, books, and games. I was hoping there would be some interesting Xbox games on this list, namely Jade Empire, but snagging $500 worth of software for my Powerbook isn’t a bad deal.
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