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The awkward communication gap between app developers and users is mitigated with UXTesting, an analytic tool from Taiwan’s NeverWorks

If you are a smartphone user, you must have complained at least once that the design of a particular app is contradictory to the principles of User Experience (UX) design. On the other hand, as an app developer, you probably could never figure out why the design of the app did not satisfy UX requirements. And if the complaint is from a paying client, well, all you can do is ‘adjust it’ again and again.

NeverWorker is here to end the awkward communication gap between app developers and users. Its goal is to develop a tool that developers can easily use to see how users use their apps during development and UXTesting is the answer it has come up with. UXTesting is an analysis tool to test user experience on apps. So far, over 70 apps, with a total of over 100 million downloads, have been cooperating with NeverWorker, according to the company.

How it all began

The Founders of NeverWorker are Aldrich Huang, Rex Chen and David Tsuang.

Huang moved to Hong Kong after a few years’ experience working as legal counsel in Taiwan. Due to his presentation and social skills, he worked in a Singaporean company that focussed on assisting clients with company establishments. The job allowed him to meet many startups, and at the same time, he also wondered whether endless networking with clients was truly his career plan. He moved back to Taiwan after one year in Hong Kong and joined a Taiwanese startup that had newly-merged with a major telecom as its Business Development Manager.

There he met the other Co-founder Rex Chen, a back-end engineer. The third Co-founder, David Tsuang, is an iOS developer who already had an established business with five published apps in the market. Despite having so many apps in the marketplace, he wanted a stronger business team to grow outreach and awareness. After meeting Huang and Chen in a meetup hosted by InstALL App Industrial Developer, the three of them decided to go into business together.

Thus, NeverWorker was officially registered in September 2014. It started operations in December.

Reasons for app development

Tsuang knew that UX is a key factor for any great app, so he always had his prototype apps tested by users beforehand. Due to inefficiency in the feedback process, he decided to develop an analysis tool for UX testing.

The UX analysis tool is important in the app development market, according to Huang.

When he was in Beijing as an exchange student, two of his roommates who majored in User Interface (UI) design joined video game companies later. He learned from them that video game companies in China put a lot of effort in marketing research.

For example, in order to understand user preferences, a video game company’s strategy was to create a transparent room and record every facial expression on their face when they played the game. The company was thus able to understand user feedback through direct contact. This lesson stayed with Aldrich while developing UXTesting.

UXTesting was officially launched on May 8 after about five months spent on development.

The main functions of UXTesting are:

1. User testing video: In the prototype evaluation process, UXTesting is able to get feedback from a user’s facial expressions, postures and touch mannerisms.

2. Crash playback: The crash replay allows app developers to figure out what users have done to cause problems in the app by watching the video playback.

3. Heat map: App developers can learn what design components in the app are useful/useless with heat map detection.

4. User flow chart: App developers are able to know which pages are most visited by users and how exactly users use the app.

“UXTesting is a platform that app developers can choose for either blind testing, or testing with the user’s knowledge, or even A/B testing to find out the most adequate method to adjust their app development,” said Huang.

UXTesting is open to both Android and iOS developers and also provides services globally.

What the future holds

Currently, most of the company’s Taiwanese clients are from universities, including NTUST and NTUT, besides smartphone manufacturers and gaming companies. “Some companies do not know the importance of app testing until they see how UXTesting works,” said Huang.

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NeverWorker is aiming to promote its product worldwide, too. After the boot camp held by Taiwan Startup Stadium, the team immediately applied to enter a US startup accelerator and is planning to move to the US after successful enrollment, so that it has a better chance to explore the global apps developers’ market.

The company is currently bootstrapped, with the three Co-founders paying for expenses out of their own pockets. The team is not actively looking for VCs right now, but would love to share more details with angels who are interested in the product. It was awarded the championship at an app development competition ‘Guarding Taiwan: Open Data & Open Source Disaster Prevention App Challenge’, co-hosted by Microsoft and the government in March 2015.

For all the app developers out there who are trying for new iterations with every ‘adjustment’, UXTesting is the one tool you’re looking for.

This article first appeared in PunNode.

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