Paid Websites Usability Testers - Essay Example

Paid Websites Usability Testers Paid Websites Usability Testers Internet is a medium, which is all about information exchange. The globalization has enhanced due to the tremendous growth of the Internet usage all over the world. The increasing use of the Internet has led to the investigation of users’ behavior related to the use of the Internet and websites hosted on the web. On the web, people can openly and easily express their views and ideas. There are many corporate websites that collect information from users to determine how different clients evaluate their clients’ websites for usability and other navigational performances. For instance, they create a blog or online survey on their websites where anyone can come and express the experience and observations regarding the website navigation. These company websites also pay users for using, testing, giving reviews and answering questions which can help clients to make changes for making their websites better. This paper is about “Paid Website Usability Testers” and its evaluation for reliability of data collected through paid user testers. This website usability tester idea is a new evaluation method which helps in data collection for company’s website. This method of data gathering is now become common on the Internet. There are many different websites which pay testers some amount for testing and sometimes give company’s product for free for using and judging their site in a helpful manner. Those websites ask the tester to discover flaws in their website, want them to guide that how they can improve their site. These websites expect from user tester to observe design flaws and any other weak and confusing points to assess the usability of their website. These sites set a panel to do usability testing who simply write the experience in answer form of their questions. For that, they pay testers in dollars like around $5 to $15, but it varies. Reliability of data gathered via paid Internet users While, talking about paid Internet users for those websites who just want to gather the information about their own websites. The data which they collect from user tester can be reliable because they share their own experience for using the website which is the first hand data. The first hand data is considered as most reliable data because it is got by a direct source, and the direct source is tester user itself. Only the user of any product or site can provide real statements and observations. It is also possible that the data verification technique should be used for the accuracy of data by comparison of data collected from different testers. Then in the meanwhile it will be easy to figure out the final form of data gathered which can be called reliable data (Spool, 1999). Evaluation Method by Usability Testing Companies The testing companies are likely to evaluate that the data, which is being gathered, is correct or not. The question remains that whether the user testers were providing the correct information regarding the website or not. So, the companies follow proper methods, which include eye tracking, focus groups, contextual interview and remote testing. The eye tracking technique has software which easily tracks that at which point of the website user is focusing more. So the voice of the user and the answers match accordingly. Groups focus also helps while talking in a discussion forum between 5-10 user testers who have done usability test. The contextual interviews with users are more direct and real. As the test takes 10 to 15 mints the screen sharing software also help the companies to remote the usability vendor services. The assessment of evaluation method also base on scenarios which give the idea that why a user visit their site and sometimes the reasons of any difficulty itself describes the solution that how this goal should be achieve by making what kind of changes (Cameron, 2012). The Natural Test Environment for Web Users The testing companies try to provide easy and natural environment to the user tester. They give them flexibility that they can easily just give comments while recording their voice there is no need to show their faces they just need to record a screen video and voice only for 15-20 minutes. The demographic profile helps and provides an opportunity to make money from home base computers in this natural environment. There is software, which is used as a tool for providing the test environment by asking and designing different questions. The license is being provided to the users who are the part of the usability testing websites (Spool, 1999). User’s Specific Demographics Validate the Gathered Data To become a usability tester, the demographic profile plays an essential role for the usability testing companies. Mostly, these testing companies are very much concern about user’s age, gender, country, income and most important web expertise. Sometimes, additional demographics also requested by those companies in additional demographic they usually ask for education or occupation as well. The users get selected on the basis of required and preferred demographic profile. Whenever a test is available, and it also match with the demographic profile of the user then that test send to those users. Then it becomes easy to evaluate because the perfect profile has been chosen so the test result and the data collected from these sources can be considered as reliable and most appropriate. While the validity of data collected by the usability testers is a complex thing to understand, especially, for the users who are more inclined towards gathering information, the validity of the data is checkable and can be measured in several ways. The repeated answers from different users can be helpful for creating this perception that the data is valid. The marketers prefer those products, which have the competitive advantage to the other marketer’s product. And the valid data help in evaluating it (Cameron, 2012). The Evaluation of Usability Test for Strayer University’s Website The Strayer University’s Website usability test being a user of this site provides a lot of information about everything like; degree programs, fee structures, admission criteria. It also provides financial assistance. However, the thing on which I wanted to take a look was course list, which was not there. It is good that there is a cost and flexibility criterion also defined with tuition fee specifically per course fee is mentioned which is easy to make a mind for taking admission there and overall. There are different kind of reviews about the university some are negative, and some are positive. However, I would recommend visiting this site if anyone is interested to take admission information in detail (Strayer University, 2013). In conclusion it could be stated that paid Internet websites are providing opportunities to users to earn from an easy job. They also provide reliable data, which is based on the experiences of real usability testers. In addition, usability-testing companies also evaluate data through different software and check their credibility from different sources. The web users are allowed to provide test results in a natural test environment. As various users who participate in these online tests have different demographics therefore the data validity chances go up as different views add to the value of usability tests. After taking up the usability test of Strayer University website it becomes easier to understand that these kinds of testers help in getting an in-depth understanding of any website. Reference Cameron, C. (2012). A Field Guide to Usability Testing. Freiburg: Smashing Media. Spool, J. (1999). Web Site Usability: A Designers Guide. San Diago: Academic Press. Strayer University. (2013). From http://www.strayer.edu/ Read More