From the life of the usability laboratory Mail.Ru Group



    Our usability laboratory is a fun place. Not because our team has gotten this close, although it could not have done without it. It’s just that different people come to us to study software products, and they often amuse us with their statements, comments and exclamations. Very sincere, and therefore especially valuable from the point of view of analyzing the convenience of interfaces, structure and internal logic of the software. We even record the most interesting and fun cases with our respondents, and today we want to share some of these notes with you.

    The usability laboratory of Mail.Ru Group is equipped with powerful equipment for conducting various studies with users. This and the Tobii monitorwith built-in eyetracking; and a mobile stand for testing smartphones and tablets, also capable of recording eye movements; and BioPac - a device for recording the psychophysiological reactions of the user.







    But the most important “ingredient” of competent research is, of course, users. We really love our users, because their criticism and wishes are the most valuable for the product.

    We calculated that, on average, 40-50 people per month go through the usability laboratory of Mail.Ru Group, and today we will talk about various cute and curious cases related to respondents.





    One man, once having visited us for usability testing, tried to get to us two more times within three months, coming under different names (and the entrance to us was only by passport). Each time we politely explained that we could only be visited once, and we poured coffee for him. :)

    Another man came to the morning test in a somewhat ... altered state of consciousness. As it turned out, in the evening the day before the test was a very important football match.

    Another came to us in slippers (no, it was not an employee).

    During the tests, respondents can learn a lot of new information. Women who came to usability testing of the Horoscopes project said that they choose the color of the outfit depending on which planet affects the day of the week. They also said that they would cancel the meeting with her boyfriend if they read in the horoscope about the upcoming quarrel.

    The sweetest case was when testing the “Answers” ​​project, when the respondent refused to take a reward, arguing that he could not take money from his beloved project. But agreed to a souvenir.

    We were very worried when very pregnant women came to us to test the Children project, but everything went well. It also happened that mothers with children came. While mothers were busy, children had fun in our lounge area.

    And now we will quote the respondents who we carefully collect and post on the wall above the work desks.

    Usability testing of gifts on social networks Odnoklassniki. Users talk about gifts:
    • "Horns once received from a fool ... Well, I thought they themselves would fall away"
    • "When a man gives such a hat, it is very sad ... You still give me a fur coat VKontakte!"
    • “Size is not the main thing”

    Usability testing of the ArcheAge website:
    • “Wait a moment to create an account, we still haven't finished the preliminary caresses”
    • “The sea can be made more fluid”

    Usability testing Auto Mail.Ru project:
    • “I have little interest in laws, because I don’t comply with them” [about traffic rules]
    • “This article is long, it happens that the author suffered and endured”
    • “I do not like to write, I do not like to read”

    Interviews with users of the Mail.Ru Search project:
    • “I’m such a preservative in this regard” [about the adoption of new features]
    • “We've shoveled half the internet.”
    • “For so much time on the Internet everything has already been found”

    And for dessert, we shot a short video about our laboratory:


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