Guerrilla research

If the project is too small, or if you don't have enough budget to spend on different methodologies or even to recruit participants for the research, consider doing guerilla research. According to UX Magazine, guerrilla research is a fast and low-cost way to gain sufficient insights to make informed decisions. The downside of this method is that the users you recruit are unlikely to perfectly represent your user base or even the potential users. So, it might be ideal for when you want quick results for timely issues and do not need a very specific public profile.  

In this case, instead of recruiting the participants and setting a schedule, you go where they are. The first step is to look for a place with a high flow of people who have the face of your product. It could be a cafe, a mall food court, a park, a department store (ask permission!), or even a subway entrance (as long as you do not make people miss the train!).

It's good to choose a place with Wi-Fi. If it's not too noisy and you have a place to sit, better yet. On the spot, you approach people and invite them to take a quick quiz (it's fine to limit them to about 15 or 20 minutes). And, as a reward, you can give a shopping voucher for where you are or a voucher from a store nearby.

Although the guerrilla method might not be useful for in-depth usability testing, it is invaluable for quickly testing a general layout or interactive element and verifying the most glaring UX errors that have to be identified and fixed.

David Peter Simon, from UXBooth, suggests that you should plan your guerrilla research, considering the following:

• What shall you test?
• Where will you run the test?
• With whom will you test?
• How will you test?

Since usually the tests are conducted in public spaces where you can find people available to talk with you,  the sessions shouldn't last as long as a formal usability test.  This makes guerrilla testing extremely lean and agile and you can get insight quickly.

Markus Pirker, in a blog post for Userbrain.com, suggests following these steps:

1. Approach someone
2. Ask them if they would like to answer a few questions about your product or service
3. Give them a couple of simple tasks to do
4. Observe their interaction while they do the test
5. Ask about their experience

He also highlights that you might only need three to five people to spot the biggest usability issues, once you're collecting qualitative data during the tests: