Re: [CODE4LIB] Screencasting Usability Studies
Ronan- That's exactly what we do here at NYU Libraries and it works really well. We have observers in another room taking notes in real time as the tests are in progress in another part of the library, using GoToMeeting. Let me know if you want more details. On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 2:14 AM, Ronan McHugh r...@kb.dk wrote: Steve Krug recommends GoToMeeting in his book (Rocket Surgery Made Easy). They've got a 30 day free trial so we're going to try it out next week on some of our colleagues to see if it's worth the price. Basically what we want is the ability to capture the screen and sound and to play this live for the developers in another room, so that we can all observe together. I looked at Silverback, but I think getting users to do a usability test on an unfamiliar device (i.e. a Mac) can only lead to problems and confusion. I'll let you know how we get on. Cheers, Ronan McHugh Software Developer Royal Library of Denmark -- Nadaleen Tempelman-Kluit Head, User Experience (UX) Department Bobst Library, New York University n...@nyu.edu (212) 998-2469 Sign up to help us test our interfaces get an iTunes gift card! https://library.nyu.edu/ux/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Screencasting Usability Studies
We use this approach as well here at Cornell. Our usability group has tried a variety of techniques, including using Morae and writing detailed reports for clients, but having clients observe live from a remote location seems to engage them more. It's become a popular means of testing. One note, though: this method gets called discount usability testing, but we found that label to be very inaccurate! We call it raw usability instead, which I think better describes the unprocessed flow of information from tester to client. By the way, we also use Macs for most of our testing, and I don't think that it's led to inordinate amounts of confusion. I would recommend running tests in Firefox or Chrome, though, and not Safari. And on a laptop, definitely plug in a mouse so that testers don't have to rely on the trackpad! — Matt Matt Connolly Application Developer, CUL-IT Cornell University Library 218 Olin Library | Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 256-4209 On Feb 28, 2014, at 6:06 AM, Nadaleen F Tempelman-Kluit n...@nyu.edu wrote: Ronan- That's exactly what we do here at NYU Libraries and it works really well. We have observers in another room taking notes in real time as the tests are in progress in another part of the library, using GoToMeeting. Let me know if you want more details. On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 2:14 AM, Ronan McHugh r...@kb.dk wrote: Steve Krug recommends GoToMeeting in his book (Rocket Surgery Made Easy). They've got a 30 day free trial so we're going to try it out next week on some of our colleagues to see if it's worth the price. Basically what we want is the ability to capture the screen and sound and to play this live for the developers in another room, so that we can all observe together. I looked at Silverback, but I think getting users to do a usability test on an unfamiliar device (i.e. a Mac) can only lead to problems and confusion. I'll let you know how we get on. Cheers, Ronan McHugh Software Developer Royal Library of Denmark -- Nadaleen Tempelman-Kluit Head, User Experience (UX) Department Bobst Library, New York University n...@nyu.edu (212) 998-2469 Sign up to help us test our interfaces get an iTunes gift card! https://library.nyu.edu/ux/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Screencasting Usability Studies
I¹ve used Silverback Camtasia. Silverback is pretty dead simple and nice and cheap. Camtasia needs a bit more configuration, but it works just as well. The one issue that I did not expect to run into using Silverback is how many users (students, especially, oddly enough) were unfamiliar with using a Mac. It made usability testing a bit tricky, since they were apprehensive about even using the trackpad. ³How do I go back?² ³You press the back button, just as you would in Firefox on a PC.² That kind of thing. I definitely didn¹t expect that. -Sean ‹ Sean Hannan Senior Web Developer Sheridan Libraries Johns Hopkins University On 2/27/14, 1:06 PM, Mary E. Hanlin mhan...@reynolds.edu wrote: Hi All, Sorry if this has been discussed before. (I'm new to the list.) But, has anyone conducted usability studies using screencast software? If so, what software works well? (Morae is too pricey; I'm thinking along the lines of Camtasia, Silverback, etc.) Also, do you have any anecdotal advice regarding what worked and what didn't? Thanks in advance. Mary Hanlin Electronic Resources and Web Librarian Reynolds Community College Richmond, VA Phone:804.523.5323 Email: mhan...@reynolds.edumailto:mhan...@reynolds.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] Screencasting Usability Studies
Hi Mary, I haven't used it for screen casting usability testing (yet), but I was going to use Quicktime packaged with OS X. It can be used for screen recording. Best, Junior Tidal Assistant Professor Web Services and Multimedia Librarian New York City College of Technology, CUNY 300 Jay Street, Rm A434 Brooklyn, NY 11201 718.260.5481 http://library.citytech.cuny.edu Mary E. Hanlin mhan...@reynolds.edu 2/27/2014 1:06 PM Hi All, Sorry if this has been discussed before. (I'm new to the list.) But, has anyone conducted usability studies using screencast software? If so, what software works well? (Morae is too pricey; I'm thinking along the lines of Camtasia, Silverback, etc.) Also, do you have any anecdotal advice regarding what worked and what didn't? Thanks in advance. Mary Hanlin Electronic Resources and Web Librarian Reynolds Community College Richmond, VA Phone:804.523.5323 Email: mhan...@reynolds.edumailto:mhan...@reynolds.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] Screencasting Usability Studies
I've used both Camtasia and SnagIt and I like both well enough. SnagIt is cheap and dead simple for the screen capturing process; not a lot of bells and whistles but I don't need / want those. I've also used a lot of video editing tools (since SnagIt doesn't have much itself) and these days mostly just use Windows Movie Maker or equivalent free tool. On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Junior Tidal jti...@citytech.cuny.eduwrote: Hi Mary, I haven't used it for screen casting usability testing (yet), but I was going to use Quicktime packaged with OS X. It can be used for screen recording. Best, Junior Tidal Assistant Professor Web Services and Multimedia Librarian New York City College of Technology, CUNY 300 Jay Street, Rm A434 Brooklyn, NY 11201 718.260.5481 http://library.citytech.cuny.edu Mary E. Hanlin mhan...@reynolds.edu 2/27/2014 1:06 PM Hi All, Sorry if this has been discussed before. (I'm new to the list.) But, has anyone conducted usability studies using screencast software? If so, what software works well? (Morae is too pricey; I'm thinking along the lines of Camtasia, Silverback, etc.) Also, do you have any anecdotal advice regarding what worked and what didn't? Thanks in advance. Mary Hanlin Electronic Resources and Web Librarian Reynolds Community College Richmond, VA Phone:804.523.5323 Email: mhan...@reynolds.edumailto:mhan...@reynolds.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] Screencasting Usability Studies
It really depends on what you want to do and how complicated you want to get. I've used Camtasia, SnagIt, and Adobe Captivate, and they're all good for what they do, but my personal favorite and go-to program is Captivate. The learning curve is a little higher, but it's very powerful. It separates out the recorded elements (screen, mouse, typing, etc.) into different tracks so that you can tweak the timing on each one separately, you can configure it to automatically add in different things (sounds for typing and clicking, pop-up label boxes, highlight boxes, etc. - each of which you can modify or delete individually), it allows you to add individual voiceover recordings and adjust your screen timing to go along with your voiceover (so that you don't have to record your voiceover at the same time as you're concentrating on the screen recording), you can build quizzes into it, you can make it branch depending on answers, easily add title slides between sections of video, easily import graphics, etc You can also use it to make a quick dirty screen capture without any configuration and upload it directly to YouTube without having to mess around with conversions when you want to, but if that's all you need, then it would be overkill. Terran McCanna PINES Program Manager Georgia Public Library Service 1800 Century Place, Suite 150 Atlanta, GA 30345 404-235-7138 tmcca...@georgialibraries.org - Original Message - From: Mary E. Hanlin mhan...@reynolds.edu To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2014 1:06:14 PM Subject: [CODE4LIB] Screencasting Usability Studies Hi All, Sorry if this has been discussed before. (I'm new to the list.) But, has anyone conducted usability studies using screencast software? If so, what software works well? (Morae is too pricey; I'm thinking along the lines of Camtasia, Silverback, etc.) Also, do you have any anecdotal advice regarding what worked and what didn't? Thanks in advance. Mary Hanlin Electronic Resources and Web Librarian Reynolds Community College Richmond, VA Phone:804.523.5323 Email: mhan...@reynolds.edumailto:mhan...@reynolds.edu
