Morae - User Experience Testing Software

[Nick]

Hi All,

I stumbled across this and immediately thought of Phil, and I thought
I would share it.

Has anyone seem or heard of Morae (http://www.techsmith.com/morae.asp?
cmp=DSnkM2)?

Let me know what your thoughts are. It looks like it is a Windows only
thing so now joy for us Mac users.

Nick

[AJK]

We talked about Morae in another Thread. As far as I know, Phil has
already (might still be) using Morae for testing.

[phi...@gmail.com]

Yes. I am using Morae.

It does some key things absolutely right. So that makes it worth
it.

It lets you set up observers to watch in another room and it lets you
record user video etc. Very important because usability testing is, to
a great extent, a social and political activity.

It also lets one of those observers log what's happening in fairly
useful way.

But it also provides shed loads of features that are not that useful
for your average, quick and dirty usability test.

Camtasia, also from techsmith, does the desktop recording thing - but
does not allow remote observers. It costs about 1/10 of the price of
Morae.

--Phil--

[AJK]

Bying a digital camera, connecting it with a cable to a laptop next
door with a capable video card and using Camtasia is probably still
cheaper than Morae. :)

[darryl.hebbes]

@AJK: Agreed, R11,000 is alot to fork out for a part of the process
that may be better achieved with less tools.

I recommend doing the prototype in HTML right up front, using say
Adobe Dreamweaver. That way you working with the real interface from
the beginning. Change it hundreds of times, wittle it down to what is
essential. Then you would have solved content size issues, placement
issues, color issues, accessibility issues, browser issues and you can
publish it for clients to get a feel of progress.

See these two articles for more:

http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives/001050.php

http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/the_interface_as_a_spec_including_stories_inline.php

Also check out the SAUX link repository at http://del.icio.us/saux/%40tools
for more options.

[Rian]

FWIW, at eBay we switched to Morae about 2 years ago and never looked
back. It's great...

On May 13, 4:16 am, "darryl.hebbes" <darryl.heb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> @AJK: Agreed, R11,000 is alot to fork out for a part of the process
> that may be better achieved with less tools.
>
> I recommend doing the prototype in HTML right up front, using say
> Adobe Dreamweaver. That way you working with the real interface from
> the beginning. Change it hundreds of times, wittle it down to what is
> essential. Then you would have solved content size issues, placement
> issues, color issues, accessibility issues, browser issues and you can
> publish it for clients to get a feel of progress.
>
> See these two articles for more:
>
> http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives/001050.php
>

> http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/the_interface_as_a_spec_includ...
>
> Also check out the SAUX link repository athttp://del.icio.us/saux/%40tools

[AJK]

I don't think anybody is disagreeing that Morae is a great tool Rian,
but it is not something that startups can afford.