How important is the location bias with usability testing for a company?

Question

I am planing to do a usability test for a company. It is a usability test (first one to be done) for a web product in the final stages of development.

How important is the location, where the usability test is performed? Is the bias significant enough to be considered? (If, for example, it is performed in a conference room, at the company?)

I plan to test between 5 and 10 subjects.

Answer 1

It depends: where do you expect the application to be used?

If most users will be in a relatively quiet, indoor environment, the conference room should be close enough, in my opinion--even if it's not exactly the same (at home vs. work, for example).

However, if the expected environment of use is quite different, testing in a conference room won't be adequate.

Imagine, say, a mobile travel guide app. It might work great in your test. But then in real life, you might discover:

• Small controls on the interface worked fine when the phone was sitting on the conference room table, but not when navigating with one hand while walking.
• The color scheme isn't readable in bright light outdoors.
• Audio features are useless because of traffic noise.

Consider the features and expected use of your app.