Porting Shiny apps to new platforms for UX testing

Hi RStudio Community,

I am working on a Shiny app that will have wide distribution and I would like to do some usability testing with it. Instead of patching something together with a link to the app and a survey from another platform, I hope to find a way to test it on a testing platform like Maze or UsabilityHub. I'm curious if anyone else has experience moving their Shiny app over to another platform (the examples Maze gave me were InVision, Sketch, Marvel, and Figma) for user testing. I am not a UX expert at all, so I am beginning with some advice I got from UX friends, and not much else to go on. I'm reaching out to see if other people have used third-party software testing platforms with their Shiny apps, or if they have tried to move their Shiny app over to the aforementioned platforms, for testing on UH or Maze (or another testing platform I haven't encountered yet).

Originally I planned to do at least some in-person testing, and now it must be remote. Hopefully answers on this topic will help other people who need to test software remotely in the future.

Thank you in advance for your help/advice.

I don't have direct experience moving Shiny apps to other platforms for testing, but I have used third-party testing platforms for other software projects, and they can be helpful in identifying areas for improvement. In terms of remote testing, it's definitely become more prevalent in recent times, and it's good that you're adapting to the situation.

So, agile testing processes can be beneficial in this context, as they allow for more feedback and iteration, which can help you refine your app more quickly. If you're new to UX testing, I'd recommend starting with some basic user testing methods, like usability testing, to get a sense of how people interact with your app.