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A standard remote lab setup: a two-line desk phone, laptop with wired Internet connection, a second monitor, and a phone headset. You may also need a phone tap and amplifier to record audio, depending on your recording setup.
A computer. Laptop or desktop—doesn’t matter. Just be sure that the system specs exceed the minimum requirements of all the screen sharing, chat, recording, and note-taking software you’ll be running. And be especially sure that your computer is compatible with the screen sharing solution you choose; lots of screen sharing solutions are currently PC-only, although this will probably change. And be doubly sure to have plenty of hard drive space free.
A wired, high-speed Internet connection. Wireless connections are too unreliable to run screen sharing software with 100% confidence. It’s very important to have an uninterrupted wired connection—the faster, the better.
A landline, two-line, touchtone desk phone. It has to be a landline desk phone, for a few reasons: batteries won’t last across multiple testing sessions, a phone tap (if you need one for recording) won’t work with a mobile or cordless phone, and most importantly, it’s more stable and reliable. And it has to be a two-line phone if your setup requires you to conference call with both your user and your observers. (Alternatively, you could use a VoIP service like Skype if you’re prepared to deal with the spottiness and instability of the typical Skype call, circa 2009.)
Headset for the phone. Your neck will thank you.
Two monitors. The screen sharing window alone takes up nearly an entire monitor, so if you actually want to be able to see your notes, chat windows, or anything else on your computer, you’ll need the screen space.
Phone recording adaptor or a phone tap and amplifier. You’ll need these tools to record the phone conversation if you’re speaking through your landline telephone (and not a VoIP service).
Peace and quiet. It’s crucial to test in a place where you can talk freely at a normal volume and won’t be disrupted, like an empty office or meeting room. Background noise can be unbelievably distracting to both the moderator and participant.
Doing a Pilot Test Right Now
So now that you’ve got your equipment together, why wait? Let’s do a simple 10-minute pilot test to get your feet wet. This pilot test will simulate a basic moderated session, not including the recruiting process (which is described in the next chapter).
The crucial piece of software you’ll need is a screen sharing application, which will allow you to see what’s on your user’s computer screen during the session. There are many screen sharing options (described at length in Chapter 8, “Remote Research Tools”), but for now we’ll stick with Adobe’s Acrobat Connect. It supports observation and chat, as well as webcam sharing (which we won’t get into here). Connect doesn’t require users to install anything on their computers; all they have to do is visit a Web site that you’ll direct them to, which means that you can get around most firewalls, antivirus software, and other barriers that might prevent you from running the screen sharing. It’s compatible with all OS platforms, so you, your observers, and your participant can be on a Mac, Linux, or PC. And finally, it comes with an optional conference-calling service that you can use to have the study participants and observers on the same line.
Now, you’ll need a pilot participant. Grab anyone at all—your coworker, sister-in-law, high school lacrosse coach—and just tell him/her in advance to be waiting near a phone and a computer with high-speed Internet access.
OK, time to get connected with your participant. For brevity’s sake, we’ll assume you can follow onscreen instructions:
1 Sign up for a free trial of Adobe Connect at the Adobe Web site (google “Adobe Connect”) and follow the instructions there to begin a session. You should end up at the Connect session window (see Figure 2.2). The first time you use Acrobat Connect, click the Share My Screen button. That will trigger the download of a little plug-in that will allow you to use the screen sharing function. (This is the only time you’ll have to do it; after that, it should always launch using the plug-in, rather than a tab of your Web browser.)
2 Call your pilot user.
Figure 2.2
The Adobe Acrobat Connect session window: the big window is the user’s screen, and the smaller windows, from top to bottom, are the user’s webcam (optional), the participant list (including observers), chat, and notes.
1 Set up your user’s screen sharing. Tell your user to start the screen sharing session by going to connect.acrobat.com/XXXXX (again, XXXXX = your Connect account name) and join as a guest. (If you’re tech-savvy, you can shorten the URL using http://tinyurl.com or set up an easy-to-type redirect link in advance and tell your user to go there. When you’re reading a URL over the phone, it’s easy for listeners to get the letters confused, so the shorter, the better. It’s usually faster to do a careful “T-as-in-Tom, O-as-in-Orange” spelling to avoid errors.) Tell the user to click on the arrow in the upper-right corner of the Connect window to download the screen sharing plug-in and then tell him/her to click on the Share My Screen button that appears. You should be able to see the user’s screen in your session window now.
2 Begin the study! It’s just a pilot test, so do whatever you like: have the user show you how he/she uses your interface, watch him/her fill out a survey…anything. When you’re done, click the End Session button in the session window, and the screen sharing will end. No uninstalling is necessary for Adobe Connect. Here, you should practice the things you say to the participant when wrapping up the study, the most important being: “Thank you so much for participating, I really appreciate it,” and “I can no longer see your screen and will not be able to do so again.” We’ll cover more of these kinds of details later in the chapter. For now, you’re all done.
Preparing for a Real Study
So now you know what you need for a basic study: computer, high-speed Internet, phone, and some screen sharing software. Now let’s back up and talk more in detail about the function of each tool.
Screen Sharing
Usually, the hardest part of remote research is getting your users to successfully share their screen with you—that includes both obtaining their consent and getting them to set up the screen sharing tool. As with so many technical pursuits, the more attention you give to the setup ahead of time, the easier your life will be when you actually start calling people.
First, know this: about 15–30% of all the remote sessions you attempt to set up will fail for one reason or another (see Chapter10, “The Challenges of Remote Testing,” for more details on the kinds of challenges you’ll encounter). That’s just the wild world of the Internet, and this is why a lot of the articles on remote testing focus on the nuts and bolts of conducting sessions; a few years will have to pass before the technical details become less ofa pain.
Choosing the right screen sharing tool can be overwhelming when you’re not familiar with the pros and cons of each tool. Most practitioners who do lots of remote testing eventually
