Usability Testing: Effective Tips for Remote Testing

As more people work their way towards work-from-home environments, remote access methodologies have become more relevant and more accessible.

Don’t get us wrong, remote work and the in-person counterpart works the same. It follows the same procedure and responsibilities. The only difference is the level of planning and preparation. It is indeed challenging especially when it is your first time to perform remote work.

Will this work with usability testing? Of course yes. To help you out, here are some effective tips to perform remote usability testing:

1. Connect with friends. Yes, your friends are your best contact resource during times like these. When you cannot physically go out to recruit demographics for testing, reach out with your friends and branch out the information from them. Either way, you will have warmer testing environments because of your connections.
2. Understanding recruited user’s needs. Keep in mind that not all remote users have the same software available, some might have slack or skype, some might not have any, some have good computer specs while others might have an outdated one. It would be best to ask the following questions:
• Do you have an updated computer system? Does it have a webcam? If not can you use your smartphone?
• Do you have all the needed applications in your device?
• Are you willing to install the applications needed for this test?
3. Plan B to Plan Z if possible. Create contingency plans in case something goes wrong. Usability testing poses a lot of challenges so expect things to go off-couse along the way. Slow WIFI connection, first time users for needed apps, or even users who forgot their testing appointment with you are some of the common problems. Create documentations for possible use queries form users, or create email reminders for your users on when the testing will happen are some solutions for the aforementioned.
4. Know your recruit more as they know more about your product. Usability testing doesn’t only focus on how users get to interact with what you want tested, you also need to gather data about your recruits as they are the samples of your possible clients when you roll out your product.

Being Productive during a Pandemic

The current global crisis made it feel like we are living in a new world. No public transportation, no school, no one allowed outside; the whole world is on lockdown. It feels like the world stood still, no the world slowed down, we slowed down. We are given more free time since we don’t need to rush out. We have been encouraged to work from home which is a good things since most of us are not given the luxury to do so. Now that we do, it feels like we have so much time that we can’t seem to be productive at all.

I, myself, as a web developer, is facing the same thing. I have been working from home for almost 6 years now and yet, it feels like I have so much free time now more than ever. This abundance of free time, however, did not become fruitful at all. Lately, I see myself staring at my screen for hours until I realize I was not able to do anything productive leaving me feeling guilty for the lost hours. Putting extra pressure on us because we are not able to do things it’s very counterproductive; It’s a very vicious cycle in which is very easy to get lost. Then I saw this quote online reminding us that not everyone can be productive during this crisis. We are still humans who are coping with the trauma that this event has caused us.

Even for me, who has already been working from home for a long time have the same impact as those who are used to going out. So I took a deep breath and started to calm down. Then it hit me.
With this abundance of free time, the best way to start being productive is to manage your time properly.

I started making a routine for myself. Little things that I can do at home to get the gears running. Starting the day by opening the windows to let the fresh air in. Then proceed to cleaning the house, not excessive cleaning, it’s counterproductive too; the clean environment sure gets you motivated for the rest of the day. I also started on a little vegetable garden patch in my backyard so now I get to water my plants every morning. Prep up breakfast afterwards, and enjoy the meal with the family, anyway, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. All this coupled with waking up early sure helps. After this morning routine, I can finally sit down and start with work, which I pair with my favorite songs on the music player. I decided to stay away from television during this time because the news are far too stressful to help with my current morale.

It is also best to keep in mind that staying curious is a good practice now that you have tons of time on hand. Use this extra time to keep on learning, improve your skills and to stay relevant. I have subscribed to some newsletters and digests that can help me with my niche which I now take time to read and understand. It also helps to write down what you plan on doing for the day.

It’s a situation we never faced before, in consequence we need to accept it for our own safety and try to make the best out of it. We need to stay positive and to keep going forward, but also relax and enjoy the time we have with our families.

Twitter Update: Tweet Scheduling

A new update is about to roll for Twitter, and it is so useful for online brands, social media marketers and newsletters; tweet schedules.

This new feature allows users to schedule tweets on a specific date and time. It even provides a schedule window that allows you to view all your scheduled tweets. Although this feature is only available for some users on Twitter for desktop.

Twitter has tested out a lot of new features lately, including warning systems for harmful tweets and replies, and threaded replies to tweets. Although these are still tests, we hope that all of these get rolled out as new features in the future. Schedule features can make the lives of a lot of people easier who depend heavily on Twitter for their work. It can also make announcements and news publishing a lot smoother.

ActiveCampaign Marketplace: Find Your Recipe and Automate

ActiveCampaign just announced the opening of their Marketplace, a platform where you can search an automation needed for your business and implement it to your account.

Marketplace acts as a collection of automation recipes that you can directly import to your account. It currently holds 250+ pre-built automations created by ActiveCampaign, its partners and other customers as well.

Automation recipes are pre-built automation templates that you can import into your ActiveCampaign account. By giving you a template to work from, recipes make it easy to set up the automations you need for your business.

To use marketplace, all you have to do is to:

• Choose a recipe from the marketplace.
• Import the recipe
• Setup and customize the automation

Anyone with an ActiveCampaign account can use automation recipes, anyone can submit their own recipe to the marketplace and share with other ActiveCampaign users, and anyone at all can browse the ActiveCampaign Marketplace for ideas.

If you need help with an automation in your account, or you need help with importing, and customizing an automation you found in marketplace, feel free to message us and let our professional developers help you automate your business.