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Preface | |
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Acknowledgments | |
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About the Authors | |
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Introduction | |
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Why This Book? | |
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What Is Usability Testing? | |
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The Importance of Moderating Skills | |
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The Golden Rules of Moderating | |
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Cultural Points of View | |
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About the Sidebars in This Book | |
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About the Videos that Accompany This Book | |
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About the Companion Web Site | |
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Getting started as a test moderator | |
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What Makes a Great Moderator? | |
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Understanding usability testing | |
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The basics of interacting | |
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The ability to establish and maintain a rapport | |
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Lots of practice | |
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Roles of a Moderator | |
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The Gracious Host | |
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The Leader | |
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The Neutral Observer | |
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Other possible roles | |
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When roles change | |
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When roles conflict | |
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Testing Locations | |
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Test Preparation | |
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Planning ahead | |
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Planning for many tasks | |
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Understanding the domain and product | |
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Jump-Starting Your Moderating Skills | |
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Six things you can do first | |
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The big challenges | |
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Golden rules 1 through 5 | |
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Rule 1: Decide How to Interact Based on the Purpose of the Test | |
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The type of test | |
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The product's stage of development | |
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Relationship with developers | |
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Rule 2: Protect Participants' Rights | |
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Compensation | |
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Informed consent | |
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Confidentiality | |
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Balance of purpose and risk | |
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Priorities | |
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Rule 3: Remember Your Responsibility to Future Users | |
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Letting participants struggle | |
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Conflicting responsibilities | |
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Rule 4: Respect the Participants as Experts, but Remain in Charge | |
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Controlling logistics and pacing | |
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Stopping unacceptable behavior | |
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Dealing with uncertainty | |
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Projecting authority | |
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Dispelling negativity | |
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Managing visitors | |
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Rule 5: Be Professional, Which Includes Being Genuine | |
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Dos for making and maintaining a connection | |
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Don'ts for making and maintaining a connection | |
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When you're not in the room | |
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Golden rules 6 through 10 | |
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Rule 6: Let the Participants Speak! | |
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Speakership | |
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Appropriate interruptions | |
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Judicious speaking | |
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Silent communication | |
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Rule 7: Remember That Your Intuition Can Hurt and Help You | |
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Your intuition can hurt you | |
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Your intuition can help you | |
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Rule 8: Be Unbiased | |
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Use an unbiased test script | |
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Use unbiased questions | |
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Keep answers unbiased | |
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Watch nonverbal cues | |
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Rule 9: Don't Give Away Information Inadvertently | |
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Giving an assist | |
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Explaining the designer's intent or being defensive | |
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Recording all suggestions | |
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Rule 10: Watch Yourself to Keep Sharp | |
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Initial contacts | |
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Recruiting | |
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Contacting participants | |
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Advertising | |
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Explaining the test | |
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Screening candidates | |
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Confirming appointments | |
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When Participants Arrive | |
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Greeting participants | |
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Creating comfort | |
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Obtaining informed consent | |
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The Pretest Briefing | |
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Preparing yourself | |
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Preparing participants | |
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Using a script or checklist | |
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Practicing the think-aloud technique | |
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Confirming that participants are ready | |
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Transitioning to the Tasks | |
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Starting the tasks | |
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conducting a pretest interview | |
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Interacting during the session | |
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Interacting for a Reason | |
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Keeping Them Talking | |
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Prompting as a reminder | |
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Prompting the silent ones | |
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When and How to Probe | |
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Probing questions | |
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Planned versus spontaneous probes | |
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Probes to avoid | |
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Common probes | |
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Providing Encouragement | |
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Encouraging statements to avoid | |
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Common encouraging statements | |
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Dealing with Failure | |
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Participants' self-blame | |
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The moderator's distress | |
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The participant's distress | |
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Responses to participants' distress | |
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Stopping a test | |
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What you shouldn't do when a participant fails | |
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Providing Assistance | |
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An assist | |
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Giving assistance | |
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Interventions versus assists | |
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Not giving assistance | |
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Levels of assistance | |
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Completing a task for a participant | |
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Measuring assists | |
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Interacting during post-test activities | |
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Maintaining Your Roles | |
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Determining the Order of Activities | |
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Clarifying Things That Occurred during the Test | |
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Administering Ratings and Questionnaires | |
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Questionnaires | |
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Reasons behind the ratings | |
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Accuracy of ratings | |
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Asking Open-Ended Questions | |
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Allowing Others to Interact with Participants | |
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Final Activities | |
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Providing incentives | |
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Ending the session | |
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Interacting in a remote test session | |
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What Is Remote Testing? | |
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Synchronous and asynchronous testing | |
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The technology | |
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Advantages and disadvantages | |
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Preparing for the Session | |
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Recruiting | |
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Obtaining informed consent and confidentiality | |
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Determining the equipment candidates have | |
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Establishing willingness and downloading software | |
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Interacting during the Session | |
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Establishing what participants see on their screen | |
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Providing instructions on thinking aloud | |
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Making the task scenarios available to participants | |
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Avoiding dependencies between tasks | |
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Managing visitors during the session | |
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Dealing with distractions at the participants' end | |
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Making a connection despite the physical distance | |
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Moderator-participant arrangements | |
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A Bit of History | |
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Physical Arrangement | |
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The moderator in the test room | |
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The moderator not in the test room | |
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Beliefs about Arrangements | |
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Physical separation | |
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Physical proximity | |
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Choice of Arrangement | |
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Being physically close to participants | |
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Being physically separated from participants | |
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Considerations for the Practitioner | |
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Interacting with diverse populations | |
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General Guidelines | |
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People with Physical Disabilities | |
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Interacting with the physically disabled | |
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Interacting with blind participants | |
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Interacting with deaf and hard-of-hearing participants | |
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The Elderly | |
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Recruiting elders | |
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Interacting with elders | |
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People Who Have Low Literacy Skills | |
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Functional illiteracy | |
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Interacting with functionally illiterate participants | |
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Testing with low-literacy participants | |
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Children and Teens | |
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Grouping children by age | |
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Recruiting children and teens | |
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Interacting during the session | |
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People From Other Cultures | |
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Interacting with participants from the same and other cultures | |
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Adapting your techniques | |
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Integrating the videos | |
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About the Videos | |
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The test session videos | |
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Use of the videos | |
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Content of the Videos | |
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Video 1: Pretest briefing with a checklist | |
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Video 2: Pretest briefing following a script | |
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Video 3: Interacting during the session, example 1 | |
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Video 4: Interacting during the session, example 2 | |
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Video 5: Interacting in a remote testing situation | |
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Video 6: Post-test interview | |
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The Future of Usability Testing | |
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Current trends | |
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What's next? | |
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References | |
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Index | |