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10.5 The process of user-based testing 279

than having to go to a usability laboratory or a central location. Visiting users in
their workplace or home may also be easier if you are working with users with
disabilities, for whom transportation is often a challenge (see Chapter 16). In
many ways, the user’s workplace or home setting is ideal for usability testing. The
user is exposed to customary space, noise, and attention limitations while testing
the interface. The user may feel most comfortable in their normal environment,
using their own technology, which again, may enhance their performance. In fact,
testing in the user’s natural setting goes along with the ideals of ethnography (see
Chapter 9). For the user, it’s the easiest and most natural form of usability testing.
However, for the usability testing moderator, it can be the most challenging.
First of all, a lot of travel may be needed to visit each user. Secondly, a de-
cision needs to be made: do you install the software or interface on the user’s
computer (which is more natural but may involve technical problems) or do you
bring a laptop with the software or interface installed on it (which is technically
easier but it’s not the computer that the user is familiar with, so you may get some
conflicting results). Chapter 16 provides an in-depth discussion of this decision.
If you are usability testing a mobile device, you typically bring the device along.
Thirdly, how are you going to record data? There are different approaches, all with
benefits and drawbacks. If you observe the users by sitting beside them, this may
make them feel uncomfortable and they may act differently. You can use a number
of technical approaches, but they take some time to set up before you begin the
session. For instance, you could use data logging (where user keystrokes are re-
corded), record audio or send screen output to another local computer. If you have
the equipment, or the budget to rent equipment, you could use a portable usability
laboratory. A portable usability laboratory includes the same equipment (cameras,
microphones, digital recording devices, etc.) as a fixed usability laboratory, but
in a portable case, with very long wires (or a wireless signal). The idea is that,
when you get to the user’s home or workplace, you set up the equipment so that
it essentially mirrors the setup in a fixed lab, so that a camera and a microphone
are trained on the user and screen capture is in place. You then find a location
near the user (not next to the user, or where the user feels your presence, or where
you can physically see the user) but where the equipment wires are long enough
to reach (or wireless signals can help with this). You can both record audio/video
and watch a live feed and take notes. This may be ideal from a research point of
view, since you get rich data capture and recording and the user is in their most
comfortable and familiar setting, but the downside is that portable usability equip-
ment is very expensive, takes a long time to set up, and there are often technical
problems. If you are usability testing a mobile device, how do you accurately
observe or record user actions on a device that may be too small to watch, unless
you are standing right behind the user? If they are continuously moving the device
around their own environment (as most people do), how do you observe or record
data, aside from data logging (Schusteritsch et al., 2007)?
Sometimes, it is not feasible to do usability testing in a centralized loca-
tion at a usability lab or in a user’s workplace or home. It could be that the