I’m a FOSS developer and I just read Don’t make me think!. I’m really excited about doing usability tests for the FOSS projects I work on (at the moment, primarily Forgejo). I’m also excited to take part to usability tests for other FOSS projects as a participant.
But one major problem is: how do I find participants? How do I find projects where I could be a participant in usability tests?
In “Don’t make me think!”, the author mentions a platform (https://www.usertesting.com) where you can order some videos of people trying to use what you built (without the ability to be on a call with them). It’s likely not as good as a real test where you have the opportunity to react in real time but that would be really interesting already.
But that made me think: would it make sense to have a space where people can advertise their interest in getting a particular app/website tested? Is there such a thing somewhere?
In the past my team and me internally organized something similar, it was a basically a mailinglist where people could sign up to be informed if there would be requests for usability tests; we could send an invite and they could get back to us. It would have been really great to have some remote recording capabilities, so people could actually send a video of them trying out something.
I think @fnetX would be interested; I also know some people not on this discourse who would be.
I am not sure how to organize the video recording; one might also need some consultation how to deal with data protection, but it both seems doable and it would enable an easy way to contribute to open source software outside of the usual ways.
usertesting solved the problem, but with money. They have a website and an app that records the screen and their comments, and a huge pool of people who get paid to do remote user testing. You just describe your requirements, add a screener, and in one or two days you have a lot of videos with the results. Their tool also has a task builder and many more functionalities. Having this open-source would be dope.
But the classic and affordable way is what Jdittrich said: mailing lists with volunteers. Your idea is in the middle, so I would say that totally yes. It will unite all those personal mailing lists into an open service for FOSS projects. I don´t know of an existing solution like that.
Thanks for your replies! Yes I’m in touch with @fnetX, he’s the one who recommended me “Don’t make me think!” in the first place
Could a dedicated (sub)-category in this forum be an appropriate place for advertising such usability tests? I considered using the “Job postings” category but it’s maybe not ideal (even though compensating participants could be possible).
I’m also thinking of giving usertesting.com a quick try, just to get a sense of what you get out of it…
That’s fine, the jobs can also be free. And I think asking for a test or usability evaluation is as good as a contribution as the many requests for logos or branding.
I was thinking a bit what would be needed to have a platform that allows user contributions as testers. In its minimal version it would not even do the mailing list part, it would just offer the following:
A participation link for a particular study
Text/form that tells about privacy and risks
Text/form that tells what should be done/tried out
A video platform that records a tab or window from a stream showing the interaction
A possibility to review the video, cancel the use of the video or to actually upload it. A secret link could be returned that allows the participant to refer to the video, e.g. delete it still or supplement comments.
Some sort feature that ensures that the videos are deleted after a while, except if the participant explicitly agreed to unlimited storage
I don’t know how hard to “record video to server” part is, but nothing seems to be particularly difficult (however: Seems might do a lot of work, as usual; pointers: screen capture API, Media Stream for browser APIs, pocketbase files for storage)
