Need quick quantitative information? Family and friends come to the rescue.

Problem: All I have is a product specification and the wireframe of user work flows due in two weeks. I need some quantitative data to start making usability decisions.

Solution: Indirect user interviews with family and friends.

Most people expect you to spend the holidays with family and friends. The joke was on them when I whipped out my laptop and sent them an email questionnaire requesting their help. When you don't have the luxury of doing formal user interviews nor the time to research, you use what you've got and my family and friend network came through.

It wasn't just the results of the interviews that were interesting but the fact that I was able to get such a diverse group willing to participate in a very short time frame. The beauty of using friends and family is that you already know their demographic / ethnographic information, so you don't need to waste a lot of valuable time asking for that information - you can get right to the meat of the questions.

One might think that you can't get much diversity in interviewing family and friends, but if you are creative and, let's face it... lucky, your "network" is made up of an international audience. In my case, I am very fortunate to have friends over seas and their input is extremely valuable in my case, since I am testing mobile media software.

I reached out to less then 10 people, but those people in my "network" comprised of users of all ages, sexes, vocation, ethnicity, and skill levels. The results of my indirect user interviews was insightful and all of their inputs got implemented into the resulting wireframes. Oh, and by the way, the wireframes got done on schedule.

This is not to say that highly structured usability interviews and research are no longer needed, I am just saying when you are in a very tight pinch, use what you've got.