Our colleagues over at Clearleft have spent the last several months developing a tool called Silverback, the streamlined answer to lightweight and simplified usability testing on the Mac. I was asked to kick the tires in the beta phase of this tool—here’s what I discovered.
The Pros
First, let’s cover the pros and talk about what sets Silverback apart from other usability software out there.
Usability testing for Mac!
One of the most annoying things about usability testing software is the extreme lack of support offered for professionals who use a Mac. When you think about ease of use, it makes logical sense that more and more web designers and usability professionals are switching over to the Mac. So why is there so little support for usability tools on it? For years I have struggled to locate any reasonably priced usability software solution that wasn’t a hodgepodge of software, shoehorned together. I have seen my fair share of screen sharing tools, meeting tools, and even security monitoring tools being hacked to record usability tests on the Mac and the results were not pretty. So without hesitation, I am very excited to see what is perhaps the first Mac-based usability recording tool to date.
Affordable
Unlike most usability testing software, this product has a low price—it costs $49.95. Most usability recording software packages start around $400. Comparable usability packages that offer additional software for analyzing, observing and facilitating the usability tests cost between $200 and $1,200, depending on software package, and all of this is in addition to recorder software (note that Silverback is simply recording software. It captures video of the user and whatever’s on screen). And unlike Silverback, additional licensing fees are included per installation of each software package.
Simple and easy to use
Silverback is incredibly easy to use: You just set up a project, create a session, and hit the record button. You can also make movie markers at any time during the session using the iRemote. Hit the stop button when you’re done, and that’s it! It’s really that simple. When the session is complete, you can add notes and export into a quicktime movie. Booyah.
Not burdened with features
Another great thing about Silverback is that its features are limited to those that are really core to usability testing. Most other packages are overloaded with features and often frustrate usability professionals who are just trying to facilitate a study and record the results. Silverback removes the hassle of wrangling complex test recording software and allows the usability professionals to focus their time and effort on what they do best—running usability tests. Pure and simple.
The Cons
Not every tool is the right one for every situation. For my needs as a user experience professional, Silverback is an almost perfect tool. Yet it’s not without its flaws. There are a few things I noticed that will no doubt will be addressed in later releases or as customers request them.
No remote testing
One thing I feel is missing from Silverback is the ability to do remote testing. A facilitator can’t be in Seattle and do live tests with users in Chicago, New York, or San Francisco, and must be present with the system that is being used to conduct the test. That said, Silverback does provide for a really good portable usability lab — all you need is a MacBook or iMac with the software installed on it.
Sharing the results
As I mentioned, you can not remotely access the software to export videos or see the results of a study. However, the software does allow you to export the session in the form of a quicktime movie. If your users are tech savvy enough, you may be able to walk them through this process—but you’ll need to export the video with less-than-high-quality compression to generate a movie file small enough to email or post to a project management system like Basecamp. My guess is that most test subjects are probably not going to be able to follow that process very easily so, again, the system is really geared towards being there in person with the test subject and then dealing with exporting, etc. after the session is done and the user has left the room.
Capturing secondary displays
Silverback records only on your primary display on the Mac. If you are using a laptop and have an LCD attached, it will only record the primary screen with the doc, etc. There is a simple solution for this, though: Go into your system preferences and swap the secondary display with the primary. But if you need to record activity on both screens (if you’re testing flight simulators, stock broker interfaces, or anything involving multiple screens), you’re probably out of luck.
No video editing
Silverback has no video editing capabilities. You can set movie markers for and add notes to a session, but there is no simple way to trim down the movie or cut parts out. So if you wrap up a session and fail to hit the stop button, you may end up with a lot of useless footage and large file size for your movie. I inquired about this, and Clearleft mentioned keeping the software simple and easy to use as a main reason for excluding video editing. Truth be told, if you’re on a Mac, you’re probably going to edit the video in iMovie anyway — so this is less about something missing as much as it is about convenience of having a video editor. If I had to pick convenience and bloat over ease of use and simplicity, I would pick the latter.
Conclusion
If someone asked me what my thoughts on Silverback are, I’d say that this is one tool no usability professional on the Mac should be without. Silverback makes my work easier and my customers happy, and allows me to focus on running the test rather than managing the tools. Silverback is also so simple my mom could use it and has a price tag everyone can be happy with. To my friends in the U.K., well done!
This is a great development. Thanks for the review Nick, as I hadn’t had a chance to look at what everyone was buzzing about. Laying bare the functions was a real help. Previously I thought it was either a web site scripting system for automated testing or some such thing.
It would seem the Remote location issue would be simple to add. Some sort of tiny preference file, PKE-encrypted, that 1) Set up the connection to the controller’s machine, 2) Defined an SFTP site to upload the video to, 3) Automatically navigated the user to the right page. It could be e-mailed to the user that’s got the app installed, or along with an installation link.
The viral website design buzz over the parallax scrolling backgrounds created quite a stir, long before the application ever hit the streets. Thanks for the review Nick!
Can the user be on a windows machine? If not then it’s not so representative of the general viewing audience. Looks great though.
@Ross: ClearLeft is addressing some of those things. You can see what they are and are not going to address on the Silverback page on GetSatisfaction: http://getsatisfaction.com/clearleft/products/clearleft_silverback
@Tfoo: I disagree. If that was true, then we have NEVER been representative of the general viewing audience since no usability tools worked on the Mac until now.
If you really want to do usability test in both worlds (Windows and Mac) you can always use both Silverback for the Mac and Morae Recorder for Windows.
Tho, I would wonder why you’d want to do usability testing on both platforms as we’re not talking about browser testing of websites, we’re talking about testing the website with users. For software, sure,
I guess I see your point but its not often we find cross-platform software anymore… but, yes, maybe in that case.
Thanks for the great review Nick. With the exception of the lack of remote testing this is the perfect application for lightweight usability tests. Very exciting.
Thanks for the fantastic write-up, Nick. Glad the app hits the mark for you!
@Tfoo - if you’re worried that the Mac OS UI will confuse users, you might be interested in this video of someone running Parallels whilst recording with Silverback: http://britmansell.com/?p=42
Keep up the good work.