Paid Website Usability Testers - Essay Example

Paid website usability testers are among the various methods that have been devised to assist in the testing of websites. The use of this service is faced with various advantages and disadvantages. These advantages and disadvantages influence the reliability of the collected data.

Paid usability tests are attributed to reducing costs related to supporting provision, increasing the satisfaction of the website users, and ultimately, saving on the development and redesign costs. Usability studies are known to facilitate the provision of quality feedback that can be utilized to increase the user’s interactive experience with the website (Norlin, 2002). Generally, paid usability testing is the best way of detecting design flaws on a website. This is advantageous since it prevents users from having a negative impact while using the website, and thus prevents users’ negative attitude toward the brand being promoted by the site.

Also, paid website usability testing can be easily set up thus saving time and resources, and finally, paid usability testing can be automated to facilitate testing to be done at given intervals to determine arising problems (Lazar, 2001). Despite the various advantages associated with the use of paid website usability testing, there are several disadvantages arising from the process. Firstly, the gathered information may be biased. This is because the users already know what they are looking for and thus, the collected information may not reflect the true scenario when the actual users are using the site.

This affects the reliability of the collected data (Lazar, 2001). Despite this, the collected data is reliable to a certain degree. Evaluation methods used by the website testers have a great influence on the reliability of the collected data. These evaluation techniques include nonvisual and verbal recording of browser activities and the tester’s vocal comments. Non-visual recordings of the browser's activities can be considered to be the most effective way of collecting the tester’s feedback. This is because all the browsing activities of the tester are captured.