Explore Morae

Oh happy day! People all over the world are coming together to share ideas about how to make things easier to use. Not a moment too soon, if you ask me.

I think about bad design every time I walk in my house. Somebody (probably the landlord) hung the doors the wrong way. To get inside I have to dance a cha-cha-chá that involves walking up and down steps, reaching over the gate, and stepping out of the way of the screen door. It's even better when carrying the baby or groceries.

I think I'll shoot a video of this spectacle and enter it in the Usability Video Contest—a fun event that invites people to document "everyday usability troubles." Enter your own video and you could win a prize!

Happy World Usability Day, and thanks for all you do to make life easier on us all!

Daniel Foster

Whether you're spending the day at an event or going to work like usual, you can participate in WUD!

You can drive to the nearest event. Or watch a webcast. Or participate in an interactive event.

If you're in the mid-Michigan area, you can meet some TechSmith folks and listen to Shane Lovellette, our user experience products manager, give a presentation at Michigan World Usability Day this afternoon.

Here are a couple of the real-life stories Shane will share:

Kaiser Permanente needed to redesign their customer-facing Web site. Usability manager Haim Hirsch used Morae to involve the entire team in the research process, collect user feedback throughout the redesign, and still reduced development time from 18 months to 6.

Omar Santiago of Massachusetts General Hospital wanted to make doctors (their most expensive resource) more efficient at using Electronic Medical Record (EMR) devices. Morae enabled his team to test the original design intent by seeing how the devices were actually being used in the field. The findings showed how long specific tasks take and will ultimately increase patient satisfaction by improving EMR use.

A recording of Shane's presentation will be posted to the Web some time after the event.

The idea behind Morae software is quite simple: make usability testing easy and affordable for pros and novices alike. Right now we're running a sale that will save you money, whether you're new to Morae or looking to upgrade.

For a limited time, everything Morae is 25% off! Save on:

• Complete Morae bundle
  All the software you need to conduct a test session, then analyze and share the results.
• Individual Morae components
  Build or expand your setup! Add copies of Recorder to run more tests, Manager to support more testers, and Observer to get more stakeholders involved.
• Maintenance agreements
  Save money and gain flexibility. Annual maintenance gives you priority tech support, volume discounts on your timetable, and future upgrades for free.

Morae pricing will return to normal after December 20, so don't wait around...

Mark Safire heads up the NYC chapter of Usability Professionals Association and works for JPMorgan Chase as a vice president of user experience.

In this 7-minute video interview, Mark talks about what excites him about Morae and UserVue. He says they compress an entire usability lab onto a laptop...except for the dish of chocolates.

A few of his favorite things:

• Usability software makes testing portable, inexpensive, and quick to set up.
• It's much quicker to search and play back a recorded session from the computer than from DVD; markers and metadata make it quicker still.
• Morae and UserVue provide an end-to-end solution: recording, managing, editing, presenting.
• Observation via the network or Internet gets clients involved in testing.

Mark also reflects on the emotional impact of the clip reel and how seeing people's faces helps testing move beyond the stopwatch to more strategic findings.

Need help convincing others of the value and importance of usability? Download our brand new usability PowerPoint Presentation!

The presentation combines statistics, case studies, and quotes from UX experts to make a powerful case for usability and for Morae. It also includes details and clip reel highlights from our own usability testing of SnagIt 8.

(Note: be sure to grab the presentation that matches your version of PowerPoint. If you don't have PowerPoint installed, you can use the viewer included with the presentations.)

Want to make sure you're using your terms correctly? Can't recall the name of that usability principle?

Smashing Magazine recently ran an article that will help you look (and feel) smarter! "30 Usability Issues To Be Aware Of" was written with web designers in mind, but is useful for anyone interested in usability. Here's a teaser:

In this article we present 30 important usability issues, terms, rules and principles which are usually forgotten, ignored or misunderstood. What is the difference between readability and legibility? What exactly does 80/20 or Pareto principle mean? What is meant with minesweeping and satisficing? And what is Progressive Enhancement and Graceful Degradation?

Imagine there's no lab, no need to travel. Imagine doing usability testing any place the Internet reaches. Suddenly the world is your lab and setting up a test is as quick as navigating to a URL.

That's the world of UserVue.

UserVue is a Web-based service that allows you to remotely connect to, interact with, observe, and record users as they navigate an application or Web site. It's easy for the tester and painless for the participant! There's no better way to observe people using your product in their natural environment.

Watch the Getting Started video to see what UserVue is all about...

After observing and logging a session, you may want to have quick access to the notes and markers you created during the session. Use the following procedures to save and view your markers and notes.

Save Your Notes and Markers

1. Prior to a session, open Observer and verify that Save Copy of Log (to disk) in the Marker menu is checked.



2. Proceed with the session, logging markers and notes.



3. After you disconnect from the session, you are prompted to save your log. Browse to the location to save your log and click Save. The file is saved as a .txt file which is a text only file.

View Your Notes and Markers

You can open your log as plain text in a program such as Microsoft® Word® or Microsoft® Notepad, or for easier viewing, as a table in Microsoft Excel®.

To open a .txt file in Excel:

1. Open Excel and choose File > Open.

2. Choose Text Files in the Files of type dropdown list.



3. Select the file you want to open and click Open. A message appears that Excel does not recognize the file format. Click OK to continue.

4. Follow the steps in the Text Import wizard.



The log opens in Excel.

After conducting a study and analyzing the data, you can use Morae Manager to put together a presentation video of your findings.

To ensure that your video plays anywhere, regardless of the codecs or players installed on a particular machine, use the Pack and Show option to bundle the video, the codec, and the Morae Player into one file that runs anywhere.

Pack and Show zips your video file, the Morae Player, and the TSCC codec into a single executable file (.EXE) that can be run on any Windows machine. If you have uncompressed audio in your video, Pack and Show may even reduce file size. And it's easy to play back—just double-click on the file to play your video.

To package a video as a Pack and Show executable file:

1. Choose File > Pack and Show to open the wizard.

2. In the Video file name field, click the folder icon to select the video you wish to package.

3. The name of the executable file and its path is automatically populated in the Executable file name field based on the name of the video. Accept the default provided or change the name and path.

4. Click Next. Select whether to use the system default player, or whether to include the Morae Player in the file.  If you include the Morae Player, select the playback options to include.

Watch a screencast that demonstrates these steps...