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0 pointsmschuster913y ago0 comments

> Assuming you know exactly what will make the customer experience best without actually testing it can also lead to a worse experience.

For that you usually hire a market research company or do what they will do: take an interviewer, two cameras (one front-face, one top-hands) and hire an as-diverse-as-possible pool of test candidates that you then put through whatever workflow optimization you want to do. Then afterwards, you interview them - side benefit, you can get really interesting general side knowledge that you'd never gain from a dumbass A/B scheme: is your font style/color scheme legible, can the site be used by colorblind people, are there stock photo choices that give off stereotypical vibes...

It's real fun and a worthwhile experience for everyone involved.

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ssharp3y ago

It's not really an either/or option. You can use testing to validate the changes stemming from market research.

Having seen lots of site redesigns go horribly wrong due to 100% earnest people trying their best and utilizing the research that was afforded to the process, I always recommending incrementally testing into changes on high-value / high-risk applications, even when the "improvements" were backed by solid research. You never know until you release.

mschuster91OP3y ago

The "or" was meant to be the distinction on who does the user testing - I've seen both in-house testing operations and outsourced ones. For small scale operations, it may actually be cheaper to run them in-house and only hire external testers... cameras are dirt cheap these days.

Hiring a market research company is usually worth it if you have a contract with them anyway (which gives you better rates on the testing) or lack someone on staff who knows how to deal with cameras.

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