bolt | peters, sponsor of the Remote Usability blog, pointed me to the first part of a two part series at MarketingProfs with info on free and cheap usability tools. The second part is also available. The series is aimed at marketers, and so contains some rudimentary discussions of what usability is and how you do it. Nonetheless, it is worth a read for the links.

Labels: methods, tools

The temptation to skip lab or field testing in favor of unmoderated remote usability testing is great; it can save hundreds or thousands of dollars and hours of time. But when is this type of testing actually viable? Arthur Moan offers a list of times when doing unmoderated remote testing is called for, and it not all the time.

Labels: methods, tools

When I was at Microsoft, I had to use Project to manage the schedules for documentation projects; it was free and the company standard. After I left, however, I found Project to be overkill for many things I was working on. I am also cheap. Turns out, there are now lots of great task and project management tools in the cloud; most have a free version that limits the number of projects and people you can work with. All are designed for collaboration, with access by several people and blogs, wikis, and even Web meetings among the features. Some of these require you to sign up for a subscription version, of course.

If you want a list of the best ones out there, check out this listing. I am trying ProWorkFlow, Nozbe, and CentralDesktop.

Labels: collaboration, methods