Comments on: Seeing your software through your customers’ eyes

By: 10 things non-technical users don’t understand about your software « Successful Software

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:50:27 +0000

[...] develop your software under the assumption that most users won’t read it. That is where usability testing comes [...]

By: Mariana

Mariana — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:22:01 +0000

“When I emailed them to suggest they extend the service to desktop apps they told me that it this might be a possibility if there was sufficient interest.”

This article has 2 years old now. Would you think that they have some plans for desktop app testing?

Outsourcing this service would be nice. :)

By: Easy screen sharing with Skype « Successful Software

Easy screen sharing with Skype « Successful Software — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:00:08 +0000

[...] usability testing – Usability testing is very important. But luring a stream of fresh victims to your office to take part is a logistical headache. If [...]

By: Shirish

Shirish — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:55:30 +0000

Thanks. We had usertesting carry it out for our website also and the results were incredibly useful. Especially, the user videos which shows the users testing your website.

By: Getting customer feedback « Successful Software

Getting customer feedback « Successful Software — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:22:27 +0000

[...] usability test is where you watch a user using your software for the first time. You instruct them to perform [...]

By: Andy Brice

Andy Brice — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:25:04 +0000

Phil,

Email them. They might bump it up the priority list if they get a few more emails. It can’t be that difficult for them to do (easy for me to say!) – they just need to include a VM in their test environment.

By: Andy Brice

Andy Brice — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:23:28 +0000

Stephane,

Feedback fromn ‘power’ users is very useful. But I think you need ‘virgin’ users for what most people would consider usability testing.

By: Andy Brice

Andy Brice — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:11:32 +0000

I think Morae is designed for face-to-face usability testing and it isn’t cheap at >$1000 for the suite.

TechSmith’s SnagIt is one of my favourite software tools.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:04:36 +0000

Ah what a sad ending to such a good story, I was all ready to dish up my $60 until you said it was websites only :(. Might not be a bad mISV idea for someone to come up with, I’d gladly pay too!

By: Stephane Grenier

Stephane Grenier — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:10:18 +0000

Great article, as usual, Andy! Usability testing is very hard indeed. And as you say, finding quality subjects is even harder.

What we’ve done in the past at LandlordMax is tried to single out customers that gave us the best feedback on how to improve the software (not necessarily quantity, but rather quality). And those that we did single out, we treated well. Sometimes it was free upgrades, sometimes other perks. Whatever it was, we made sure to thank them appropriately. And they were also happy because they got to directly influence the software, which made their jobs that much easier (not all suggestions are weighed evenly).

Of course this is on top of continually compiling and listing all the suggestions we get. For Perfect Table Plan it’s probably a little different, but for LandlordMax we already have about 20 versions worth of features we can add. That’s just the nature of our product. It of course doesn’t apply to every product, and in some circumstances too many feature is a very bad thing. But ignoring that debate, I think I will check out this service. And hopefully they’ll offer desktop usability testing. It would be great to get some specific testing done for new users.