During beta launches, UX researchers have one of the tougher roles: finding users willing to offer feedback.
The logistics often involve calling and email campaigns in an attempt to lock down a time to connect and schedule an appointment, topped with — if the user actually shows up — layers of technology to share screens, video-conference, take notes and edit video clips from sessions.
Chris Sader, a UX researcher for nearly a decade, said the process drags out for two to three weeks.
Not ideal, as this waiting period to connect with various users during beta delays the public release.
Usabili.me hopes to speed up that process.
This Austin startup, co-founded by Sader and Mariana Lopez, developed what it bills as a universal solution featuring several of the tech tools most commonly used during the UX research gathering stage.
“The need for Usabili.me came from a need I had myself, where I’m always trying to find easy ways to connect with my customers to do user interviews, usability testings and basically anything with remote work with customers and users,” Sader said. “Frankly, there just aren’t that many tools out there making it as simple as possible to reduce the friction. Mariana and I joined forces and worked on this from a design and user perspective and built a tool that fits our needs, startup founder needs, researchers, designers and people around the industry.”
One of Usabili.me’s features is a browser extension made up of JavaScript code that directly intercepts users live on the site to see if they’re available to connect — similar to “help” chat windows that pop up on many company websites.
If the user accepts, both the researcher and the user immediately hop into a Usabili.me room (without any download necessary). Here, the researcher can share screens, invite a member of product development to join live, record the session, take real-time collaborative notes and create recorded snippets of the interview to send directly from Usabili.me to other teammates — combining about five separate tools into one.
The result: less time spent waiting for users to respond while increasing the number of participants sharing instant feedback.
“When you’re doing user research you do it with all kinds of users, and sometimes with users who aren’t tech savvy,” Lopez said. “The ability to connect with them without requiring a download or install is really important.”
Lopez said she once sat in on a research session where half the time was spent walking the user through how to download Skype.
“We want to be able to get you quickly to give feedback, not get your feedback on how frustrated you are in downloading additional technology,” Sader said.
Usabili.me officially hit the market this month. Lopez said the founders plan to grow the team, adding roles in customer support and marketing.
“As we grow our user base — being designers and researchers ourselves — it’s obviously super important to us that Usabili.me is easy to use and solves a real need in the market,” Sader said. “We’re really excited to continue to gain feedback and add features that reduce even more friction.”
Image provided by Facebook.
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