Simple usability testing?

February 20, 2012 4:08 AM

How to set up a simple usability test station? I'm thinking a laptop with the webcam recording the user's face + a screen recorder. Anything like this already out there?

Hi, I'm developing interactive content, we need to set up a quick & dirty usability testing rig. The content will be a .swf, and we need the capability to record user reactions. Is there a way to record webcam video and the laptop screen in sync? Thanks!

posted by Tom-B to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

I've had good luck with Silverback - it records both screen activity and the user's face. It's Mac-only, though.
posted by needled at 4:22 AM on February 20, 2012

Morae by Techsmith does exactly this.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 4:48 AM on February 20, 2012

I've actually used both Morae and Silverback (and other usability testing software as well as rigged-up solutions), and while Morae has a lot of features (many of them quite useful!), it's not what I would turn to for some "quick & dirty" usability testing. Morae involves more of a learning curve, it's quite expensive, and saves files in a proprietary data format. It's certainly a good investment if one plans to do a lot of user testing, especially collecting many types of fine-grained user interactions.

Morae does have a free 30-day trial, so I'd suggest trying it out. Also, Morae is Windows-only.
posted by needled at 5:50 AM on February 20, 2012

Silverback is brilliant, exactly what I was after!

"Guerilla usability" is exactly what we're doing here :-)
posted by Tom-B at 10:11 AM on February 20, 2012