che Usability?

Got my hands on TechSmith’s Morae 2.0 about a month ago and I’m digging it.

Morae Bundle is a usability software kit that enables you to record tests, observe users, and create presentations for your usability testing.

It has three applications:

• Recorder
• Observer
• Manager.

Recorder
Load the Recorder application on the machine on which you will be performing the usability evaluation. Recorder runs in the background so it doesn’t disturb the user.

While a user performs the usability test, Recorder captures the user’s mouse movements, mouse clicks, window activity, and keyboard activity.

With the addition of a video cam you can record both the audio and the video of the session; you can later edit this for a great highlight reel for your presentation.

Observer
You can load the Observer application on one or more computers and allow your team to view the usability test in real time.

By connecting the Observer to Recorder over a network, your team can watch live tests without traveling to an observation room. Your team can view the user’s screen activity and facial expressions, as well as hear what the user is saying — all streamed live.

Manager
The Manager application is your analyzer and presentation tool.

Manager enables you to create graphs with the data from the recorded session, as well as edit video.

Manager allows you to create graphs such as:

• Time on task
• Time on web page
• Error rate
• Survey results
• Mouse movements.

These are just a few of the graphs you can create – there are plenty more out-of-the-box graphs, and you can also create custom graphs, too.

In addition, Manager allows you to take all those hours of video and edit them down to high-impact highlight videos.

Should you put your money down?
Morae Bundle is worth the money.

With Techsmith’s online Learning Centre and an in-depth manual, Morae Bundle is easy to use — and, more importantly, easy to learn.

Having a recorder layer, observer layer, and a presentation layer all in one package makes it an invaluable tool — both for a usability team within a large corporation, and for a  person who has their own consulting business.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 3:33 pm and is filed under User testing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.