Usability Tests With Computers You Cannot Install Any Software On
- Testing 3rd party computers and devices scenario
- Participant is using a 3rd party computer (a computer in a corporate environment in government or industry or a civil place). The computer’s screen is captured using a VGA converter, so that the result is an AVI video on the external recording computer.
- The observer is using a laptop computer to record the test subject’s screen (see above) and to control recording of an external camcorder (including audio) in sync with the video recording.
- The camcorder is recording the user’s behavior and audio onto a MiniDV tape or onto a built in hard disk.
- The moderator can record comments / annotation and coding using the Mangold INTERACT coding software suite.
- In case the camera has a hard drive or memory card, the video can be copied easily to e.g. a USB hard drive. In case a Mini-DV camera has been used the video needs to be converted using a MPEG converter box or a software converter. The video can then be stored as a file onto a computer's hard drive.
- The user video and the screen capture video can be opened up simultaneously within Mangold INTERACT. Based on the previously made coding and annotations the researcher can now quickly navigate in the recorded videos and add more coding and annotations to get a full picture of the recorded situation.
- Statistics, reliability analysis, statistical charts, and other visualizations can easily be done based on the collected information.
- All this output can be used to create reports easily by copying and pasting numerical output and charts into Microsoft Excel / Word or Power Point or any similar program.
- The researcher can copy all video files and the Mangold INTERACT coding documents to external hard drives and hand them out to research assistants who should do further coding, transcriptions or analysis by using their own copies of the Mangold INTERACT software package. Findings and analysis results of different analysts can be easily integrated into a single Mangold INTERACT coding document. This means that you will finally have all information of your studies at your fingertips to create comparative statistics and great looking charts easily and quickly.
