Exploring our Moderated Testing solution with Christian Rohrer

In the following video, you’ll see the mobile testing capabilities we offer in our all-new Remote Moderated solution, while Christian and Alfonso de la Nuez, Co-CEO and Co-founder of UserZoom, discuss the current state of the UX industry and why there’s a critical need for robust remote user research solutions. Then we dive into an ethnographic field study, where Alfonso describes the changes COVID-19 has brought to his professional set-up at home.

Enjoy the video! A transcript can also be found below.

Mobile testing capabilities we offer in our all-new Remote Moderated solution

ALFONSO: In the following video, you’re going to see the mobile testing capabilities that we have offered within our moderated research solution, and what better way to show it off then to actually run a test… an interview, a live interview… with one of the most experienced user experience research executives in the world, Christian Rohrer. Enjoy.

CHRISTIAN: First thanks for taking the time to just talk with me about this particular topic in general and just to get the chance to speak with you through the UserZoom moderated tool. The open moderated tool. This is pretty exciting.

Before we get into an actual interview, I want to talk a bit about where I think this fits into the whole spectrum of our industry.

The whole pandemic has created a strong need for us to have a set of tools that allows us to really connect with people without having to be there physically in person. So we’ve seen a proliferation of tools in the moderated remote area and this is one of the new entrants that I think is a game-changer in so many ways and I’m excited to explore it with you, especially through a mobile app.

ALFONSO: Well, 100% with you on the opportunity and the need in the market. I think there was already a need for remote testing in general but COVID has done nothing but accelerate the whole situation, clearly, particularly in the moderated space, because we know that it’s kind of the ‘go-to’ and the preferred choice of methods.

Regarding mobile, I’m also very happy about the fact that this tool works on both mobile and desktop devices. Because we all know how much internet consumption… and even ecommerce has moved to the mobile screen. And because I think that mobile research, particularly qualitative research, allows you to not just look at the screen but also, ask the user to potentially show your surroundings, you can do more ethnographic studies or something like that, right?

And so it gives you even more flexibility than the testing of pure web applications in a screen.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah. I want to touch a little bit on what you just said around ethnographic field studies. That’s always been a method that I felt like is the most powerful qualitative method and I always felt it was a great complement to some of your more traditional online quantitative research methods that you’ve provided.

And with this pandemic, going out into the… the idea of going out into people’s homes, it’s just not feasible, right? And we need to have an alternative that allows us to do that. We need to have tools that allow us to effectively gather data. So I’m excited to explore that with you.

I thought we’d spend a little bit of time today, exploring that possibility and having a kind of an ethnographic-style, field interview with you.

I’d love to see a little bit more about how things have changed for you at home in terms of setting up a work environment. Would it be possible for you to show me around your home office and maybe use the camera to show me how you set things up to be effective in this new environment? Would you be able to do that?

ALFONSO: So I’ll pick up the phone, the first thing I’m going to show you here is where I connect with my desktop, I bought myself a new… so I have a six-year-old laptop. So I had to buy myself a new camera. Here’s the work-station right there. I have my iPad Pro, my notebook. I bought myself a new headset, a Bose headset, that’s really, really good and very comfortable.

I have new camera that you can see up here. This is a HD Logitech camera. It’s very, very high quality. I got my ladies here. My wife and my mom. The book that I’m reading right now. I don’t know if you know this book? I highly recommend it. ‘Sapiens’. If you’re a researcher, a human researcher, you should read it for sure.

So that’s kind of my place. My brother-in-law paints for a living and that’s a painting of the Iberian Peninsula. I also have a couch that I had in a different location. But I think it’s really important that you take your breaks, you know during this Zoom-only life.

CHRISTIAN: Well, I’d like to shift gears a little bit and I wonder if you might be willing to share your mobile screen to show us some of the things that you do to stay in touch with the pandemic or how you use your mobile phone differently today.

What I’m curious about is how the usage of your mobile phone in general has changed as a result of the pandemic and what you use it for in this new world now.

I’m just curious if you can show me some examples of that if you have any?

ALFONSO: Well, yeah, I do, I do. So I go to the News app… So you see here, you have a bunch of them, but I like what they’ve done here. So first of all what I try to do, you know, is get news from multiple sources.

I’m not going to make this a political conversation, but to be honest right now, I kind of feel like I want to hear what every different media, whether you’re on the right or the left, has to say. I feel like it’s important to hear both sides.

So one of the things that I noticed on the News app, is they have something… let’s see if I can find it here. Okay. So yeah, so here I have a lot of sources and here is the one that I like the most. I don’t know if you see this, but…

CHRISTIAN: Yeah I do.

ALFONSO: And again, you have all kinds of other sources that I go to but I like the app because I like that you have a way to look at the map and see the growth on a daily basis.

CHRISTIAN: I’d like to send you a website, if I may. I’ll send you a link now and just get your impressions of, regarding the topic we’re discussing now, could I do that?

ALFONSO: Please.

CHRISTIAN: Let me send something over to you. Let’s see if it shows up on your phone, in your UserZoom Live app. You should see a…

ALFONSO: Is this Snopes?

CHRISTIAN: Yeah, tell me if you’ve seen this before.

ALFONSO: No, I have not.

CHRISTIAN: Maybe you could just take a look at this site and give me your impressions on what it is and what you think it might be useful for?

ALFONSO: ‘What is Snopes?’ Okay… ‘go-to source for discerning what is true’. Yeah, there you go… ‘what is total nonsense’. So I had not heard of Snopes and yeah, if what they’re trying to do is get to the bottom of it and try to figure out the actual truth… I mean, I see a lot of advertising here.

CHRISTIAN: And what does that make you think and feel?

ALFONSO: Well first there’s a usability issue with advertising in newspapers. And just like, sometimes you don’t know if it’s part of an article, or if it’s an ad. I think there’s nothing wrong with having advertising it’s just that sometimes it’s not usable, but yeah, I mean, I think more than anything I would want to really understand who’s behind this portal. I would want to go to the ‘about us’ and read about them here. See this is another ad right here.

CHRISTIAN: Great, well, I just wanted to give you something to look at related to what we’re talking about something you haven’t seen before just to showcase the ability to send a link over and have people respond to whatever it is, it just happened to be something that fit into our conversation.

Great, I’m going to stop the screen-sharing and put us back. You can put the camera back if you like. I just want to end this with a sincere thanks to you for spending your time sharing your life with us and showcasing the tool that we’re seeing live here now. So thanks so much, Alfonso.