We outsourced the usability testing when we built our ebook and journal platforms. The results were invaluable and not only did the company do the tests and take care of the logistics of recruiting the participants, they also provided us with wireframes and lots of documentation, which saved us a lot of time when we got around to building the interfaces.

We posted all of the findings on our wiki:

http://spotdocs.scholarsportal.info/pages/viewrecentblogposts.action?key=client

Hope that helps!

Bartek



On 03/02/10 4:31 PM, "Eric Lease Morgan" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

On Feb 3, 2010, at 4:26 PM, Sarah Kahn wrote:

> Has anyone had any experience with outsourcing the usability testing for big library web projects? My organization just rolled out our first website redesign in several years and are looking to potentially bring in a 3rd party for testing. Any insights into anyone's process or experiences would be much appreciated!


I have not had any such experience, but the folks at usability4lib might have. See:

  http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=652

--
Eric Lease Morgan