usertesting dot com

[amyjeans]

Greetings,
I came across this site- has anyone joined? heard of it? know if its legit or not?
thanks!!!
amyjeans

[germin8]

I won't be answering your question... but! ...there are websites/tools out there that test website's browser compatibility. I've never used any... I just heard about them.

edit: How difficult can testing for "userability" be? Maybe I've surfed many websites and always have an opinion of their user-friendliness. ;-)

ETA: BTW, looks like a reputable site given who their customers include.

[Kristine233]

Looks legit, but IMO there are easier ways to find out why people are leaving your site without spending the money. I'd start out by installing Google Analytics to see what kind of browser pattern people tend to have while visiting your site. You can see what page they are landing on, where they are coming from, how many pages they generally visit and length of stays. All of this information can be helpful, and its free.

I'd also asses the layout of your site to ensure the goal or focus of the site is apparent on the home page as well as easy navigation. Your visitors should be able to get to anywhere on your site from the home page.

[amyjeans]

thank you for your replies- but I was more interested in seeing if anyone worked for them. At the bottom of their site, is a link to become a site tester- just curious if anyone here is doing that.

[Aufilia]

I haven't heard of them before, but they certainly look legit. $10 is rock-bottom for user testing compensation, but then again, it's better than a lot of "jobs" you can do from home over the Internet. When I did user testing as part of my job at a public University, I think we compensated our students about $15 for an hour of their time, and that was piddling compared to what most companies paid. It's actually a harder "job" than it sounds because most people find it difficult to keep up a running commentary about what they're doing while they're doing it, especially if they know they're being recorded.

I also wanted to state that, as someone who has been trained in the field of usability testing, there is actually a HUGE difference between what you will get out of random numbers like Google analytics and from usability testing as this site appears to offer. Or at least there can be, assuming the person running the study sets it up well. But even if the users are just talking as they navigate your site, you will nearly always learn useful things about not only what they are doing, but WHY and HOW they are doing it.

[Kristine233]

Originally Posted by Aufilia

I also wanted to state that, as someone who has been trained in the field of usability testing, there is actually a HUGE difference between what you will get out of random numbers like Google analytics and from usability testing as this site appears to offer. Or at least there can be, assuming the person running the study sets it up well. But even if the users are just talking as they navigate your site, you will nearly always learn useful things about not only what they are doing, but WHY and HOW they are doing it.

I think that's over simplifying things. If you set up Analytics right you can get accurate conversion information as well. They've gone a lot more detailed over the past few years. I've been trained in usability as well, it was something that was drilled into us when I was in school for web design, but from the other angle of producing usability. IMO, the usability information is useless without knowing the trends in your specific target market niche which is why I suggest first using an analytics tool to help track that area first. But that's just my experience I'm sure everyone has a different method.