Usability Testing Tools: Silverback vs Camtasia

Published on June 6, 2013

I tried 3 software on my Mac for conducting usability testing for a website.

The first software is using Quick Time, which comes free with every Mac OS X. Quick Time has screen recording feature – which is minimally good enough for capturing a usability session. We all know Quick Time is not a dedicated software for usability testing. But it’s free to get started :)

I went on to try out 2 other softwares.

 

 

1. Camtasia

Camtasia has been around for like 10 years. It is the most well known software for screen recording on Windows and also on Mac.

I tried it out (free for 30 days), and I like it. It records the screen and iSight simultaneously.

It cost $99 USD.

I would probably stick with Camtasia if not for Silverback.

 

2. Silverback

Silverback is created by Clearleft, a user experience design consultancy company. They created this software for none other than themselves!

It works like Camtasia, with a focus for creating usability “projects” and “sessions”.

DURING a usability session, you can easily add tasks and highlights using Apple Remote. That’s very cool!

And it’s $69 USD.

Silverback is my choice!

Guerrilla usability testing software for designers and developers

PS: If you don’t know about usability testing, start with reading Steve Krug’s book.