Can AI replace human moderators in user testing?

Jonas Kamber, the founder of Solid, told us how he used Synthesia to create avatars for auto-moderated user testing.

The challenge

Jonas and his team’s job is to provide the best experience in their auto-moderated sessions by guiding users through their platform, by defining tasks, giving instructions or asking them for feedback.

In the past, Solid's auto-moderation was text-based.

It was cheap, easy to create, and quick to update. But it was also a bit boring. Jonas wanted to improve the experience for testers. He felt that video was the right lever to achieve that.

But he quickly recognised the limitations that made traditional video creation unattractive:

• Tedious production process: A traditional video would take 30 days or more to create, which didn’t match Solid’s automated on demand approach.
• Cost: Video production isn't cheap. It requires investment in actors, film equipment, a studio and much more.
• Lack of flexibility: It would be nearly impossible to update the videos once created, and it would require additional time and resources to recreate the videos.

In search of an alternative for large-scale video production, Jonas came across Synthesia.

The solution

With Synthesia, the Solid team was able to quickly turn their text-based auto-moderation into bite-sized videos. Here's how they did it:

1. They transformed existing texts into small scripts (including translations)
2. They inserted them into Synthesia's script box
3. They chose one of Synthesia's 80+ Avatars
4. Generated the video - and done!

Here are 3 reasons why Jonas loves Synthesia

• AI avatars: By switching to AI avatars, they were able to save time and money compared to hiring human moderators. With 140+ diverse stock AI Avatars and 120+ AI voices, they can also offer customised options to their clients.
• Localisation: With Synthesia, they were able to create videos in different languages (Spanish, German, French), which allowed them to tap into different markets.
• Scalability: Replacing human presenters with AI avatars has proven to be an efficient solution - it's affordable, easy to use and scalable.

The fact that we can use many languages with Synthesia is extremely important for us. This way, we can easily adapt our auto-moderated test to different markets. - Jonas Kamber, Founder of Solid

The results

Integrating the videos into Solid’s platform made the testing process a more engaging experience with higher participation and completion rates.

When we asked our testers for feedback on the new AI moderator, they didn’t even notice that it was not a real person. - Jonas Kamber, Founder of Solid

And since this approach has also been well received by users, we dare to say that the future belongs to those who believe in … well … AI video. 😉