UserTesting.com is a website dedicated to finding your website’s biggest problems in one hour, and then providing you with the information and feedback you need to improve your site’s usability.
UserTesting.com gives you the ability to create a test for your website and then have real people take the test and give you feedback via video recording, while they are using the site. You can also ask them follow up questions for further information.
For each participant you would like to test, you must pay $39, with a current coupon of $30 off orders over $100 for new clients. Also, if you are looking for extra income from home, UserTesting.com allows people to sign up as website testers.
Testing Your Users
You can choose to create your own test, or use a test template based on the area of your website you would like to examine. You can also test competitor websites, prototype sites, Facebook games, or mobile sites and applications.
Once your test is created, you can choose a market to test, either from picking participants from the UserTesting.com site, which will allow to pick the demographics of the market you would like tested, or from a pool of your website users, or you can arrange to have new users to your site prompted live to see if they will participate.
Finally, after you have received and compiled all your data from your test participants, you can edit, make notes, create clips of the videos, combine the clips into a highlights reel, and then share the reel and the notes with the coworkers who will help you improve your site based on your new information.
The Work at Home Opportunity
You can also choose to work as an at home User Tester for the website if you are looking for a way to make some extra money. UserTesting.com will pay you $10 for every website you test, and each test averages around 20 minutes.
You must be at least 18 years old with your own PC or Mac that has the ability to record your voice via microphone. In addition you must have a high speed internet connection and be able to successfully complete a test run with your equipment for UserTesting.com.
If you meet all these qualifications, you then must fill out a one page questionnaire with all of your demographic information – such as age, race, ethnicity, region of the country you live, education level, and sometimes more. This information is important as it is what is used to see if you qualify for certain website testing, depending on what market the client is targeting.
The past 12 months were a total waste of time; I completed countless surveys with - at times - very personal questions (!) to no avail. I must say this was compensated by an avalange of useless 'New Website Test' emails in my inbox, leading to even more surveys and the standard "sorry you did not qualify for this test".
It seems to me that the less interest I show, the more emails I get. By now I consider usertesting.com a SCAM to obtain tradeable consumer details and I will have no further part in that. I realize I may have been unlucky, but I advise everyone to monitor how the NUMBER OF SURVEYS compare to the THE ACTUAL TEST OPPORTUNITIES you're getting.
Lately for the past 2 weeks now the clients who I have tested the websites for have been rejecting my testing and now I have been told I no longer qualify as a tester for User testing due to the bad ratings that I have been given by the clients who put their websites on this site to be tested by user tester like me and others.
I agree with all that has been said by the people who have been posting their comments about User Testing website. It seems that they do not want to pay the user testers for their opinions about the websites that they are giving the testers to review. I do not like having been told that I will no longer receive payment for my testing of their website. Why do these people think they have the right to get our opinions feedback that they ask us to give them for free. That is not fair.
Don't believe anyone's hype that you can make a living doing this. But I think it's on you if you believe or expect that. It's a way to get $10 extra here or there for very little work.
Next topic- besides not qualifying, it's only a matter of time before your one stars and payment rejection begin piling up. I'm a good tester and thoroughly spend time going over their entire site, always give them 15-20+ minutes. I've gotten 3 one star ratings for petty reasons and 2 payment rejections.
That's almost like slavery and blind robbery. You DO NOT take 20 minutes of my time for free. As independent contractors, we will always get the boot, as a contractor the company values the client over you any day! These clients do not give a rat's a** about rating 1 star and stealing payment for any dumb reason...they are probably sitting in a cushy office in another reality from us stay at home moms, disabled barely getting by, and unemployed people just trying to earn a few bucks on the internet.
I also was told I would receive a bonus for certain longer tests that take over 25 minutes, these tests indicated that. Think I ever saw one bonus? Nope!
Last thing - usertesting customer service takes quite awhile to respond to emails. Sometimes it's next day, but usually 3-6 days.
Did not want this to be a rant, but taking our payment based on client's petty opinion is very wrong. If they feel the need to ruin the tester's ability to ever get tests by rating 1 star, so be it, but usertesting should not allow payment reversal.
I do the test CORRECTLY exactly how they want and often still receive bad ratings and taking my payment away. This should not be acceptable, and UserTesting is always automatically on the side of the client, not we the testers.
Keep making justifications all you want, but this is unacceptable. However, nothing will be done because there's always an unlimited amount of people who will tolerant having their nose dragged in the dirt, out of necessity of needing the money bad enough.
It makes no sense to be on corporate's side and condone the bad business practices.
When you say you "thoroughly spend time going over their entire site," why do you do this? I've never had a single test that asked me to go over their entire site. Maybe the reason you get 1 star ratings is because you're not doing what the customer is asking you to do and instead doing what you think you should be doing as a tester.
When you don't read and understand the simple instructions provided for you, you end up not doing what was expected of you. When you don't do what was expected of you, you don't get paid. If you go to a restaurant and order a cheeseburger and they bring you chicken soup instead, do you pay for it? Or do you send it back and ask them to bring what you ordered? Most people send it back, and the restaurant has to eat the cost for their mistake. Same goes for testing websites: the customer says, "place a widget in your cart and proceed to checkout" and you wander off checking their FAQ page for dead links instead, why are you surprised when they don't pay you?
Do what they ask of you, and only what they ask of you, and you won't have many problems. 3 one star ratings and 2 payment rejections suggests very strongly that you just don't know what you're doing and you should be reading the instructions given to you instead of clicking past them.
Not only do you waste a lot of time, but even if you perform, you may be disqualified by the company that owns the site being reviewed. They can, at their whim, just decide your review is not what they want, for a number of reasons, and you just don't get paid.
There is another BIG problem here too. Although the companies say they are looking for what reviewers really think, the person rating you may not like what you say--truth or not. I did a good review for a virus protection program, and among my suggestions, I said the site should compare the footprint on your hard drive that their service has. It is well known some take up too much room. So, I was quite honest, and my remark was relevant as well. The people that rate you are human, and they may be in advertising or management and resent what you say in your review. They rated me average, so my 4+ rating dropped. Unfair but that's how the world is. Why companies would commission testing and then be vengeful for honest recommendations seems odd.
User Testing shuttles their reviews to higher ranked reviewers. Since that time, I have not had one review offered that I could access, even though I leave their site open all day, same as I did before. There is virtually no way to redeem yourself after you are dinged that way.
Be honest in your reviews at your own peril. Be PC and sugar-coat.
I drop my rating of User Testing from waste of time to downright dreadful.