This week in Usability II, we’re looking at two software packages for remote usability recruiting. Our assignment is to explore the features offered by Ethnio and those by Mechanical Turk, then pick which one we would use for usability recruiting, explaining why we made the selection and why the unchosen option wasn’t sufficient.
I chose Ethnio mostly for its focus on usability recruiting. If you have a very specific task to perform (recruiting usability participants) then it seems sensible to use software that is designed for that very particular task. I work on TurboTax. You could use Microsoft Excel, for example, to prepare your taxes, but TurboTax is specifically designed for just that purpose. Assuming the cost is not prohibitive, for most people, it would make sense to use TurboTax to prepare your taxes, if you’re using software at all. The competition isn’t even worth investigating. Trust me 😉
Likewise with Ethinio. I’m not sure if I would want to use Ethinio for the actual testing, but I would definitely prefer their software over Mechanical Turk for the purpose of recruiting for usability. Mechanical Turk is simply too generic; the usability equivalent to using Excel to prepare your tax return.
scottmacleodsblog 
Leave a comment