Ready, Set, Moderate: Actionable Tips for Leading Usability Test Sessions

Usability test moderators play a crucial role in ensuring that the test produces insightful and actionable findings that HFE teams can use to improve a product’s use safety and usability. Moderators should be highly skilled at ensuring participant comfort, asking the right questions at the right time, uncovering design-related root causes and managing the test session such that all the activities proceed smoothly.   

Emergo by UL’s HFE experts have extensive usability test experience, including moderating thousands of test sessions, coaching new moderators and delivering training on conducting formative and HF validation tests. As such, they have encountered and overcome many usability testing challenges and are eager to share their knowledge and strategies with you.

About the presenters

Erin Davis, associate research director, Human Factors Research and Design  

Erin Davis is an associate research director with Emergo by UL’s Human Factors Research and Design team, having joined us in 2012. She has more than a decade of experience delivering HFE services to the medical device, pharmaceutical and in vitro diagnostic industries. A board-certified human factors professional, she leads and oversees research and analysis activities such as early-stage user research, usability testing and use-related risk analysis. Erin teaches workshops on a wide variety of HFE topics and advises on training for HFE professionals. She co-authored two books: “Medical Device Use Error—Root Cause Analysis” and “User Interface Requirements for Medical Devices.” She earned her master’s degree in human factors from Tufts University and her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Marquette University. 

Alix Dorfman, managing human factors specialist, Human Factors Research and Design 

Alix Dorfman is a managing human factors specialist with Emergo by UL’s Human Factors Research and Design team, having joined us in 2017. She is responsible for managing medical device usability evaluations involving both hardware and software user interfaces and ensuring that medical manufacturers’ products meet regulatory requirements. She has extensive experience leading formative and HF validation tests and routinely coaches new usability test moderators. Prior to her role with Emergo by UL, Alix applied HFE principles to technology primarily designed for the U.S. military. She co-authored the book “Designing for Safe Use (2019)” and has lectured courses at Tufts University and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She earned her master’s degree in psychology — human factors and applied cognition from George Mason University and her bachelor’s degree in psychology and economics from Cornell University.