Free beer user testing (Anders Jacobsen's blog)

June 25, 2004

Free beer user testing

Are Halland writes (in Norwegian) about an interesting concept: "Café testing" as a budget version of traditional user experience testing:

The basic idea behind café testing is to situate yourself at a café, put up a sign to attract participants, and test the people that come to you. Because cafes appeal to a wide variety of individuals, and people at a café often have time to spare, café testing can be a great way to perform a quick litmus test in the marketplace.

Café testing isn't ideal for all situations. Ideally, café testing should be used if:
- Your product or service is designed to appeal to a consumer audience
- Your tests can be performed with limited portable materials such as comp boards, a pen and paper, or a laptop computer
- Your money is more important than your time. Café tests can be performed at a fraction of the cost (often for as little as $5/participant), but may require more of your personal time than traditional outsourced testing solutions.