On Friday I had the chance to give feedback to another start-up here in town regarding a new feature they are getting ready to launch. They contacted me because I have used their site in the past, and they wanted my input as someone familiar with the site’s current features. In start-up land we call this usability testing.

They sat me down in front of a computer that was recording my actions so they could analyze them later. Then a moderator walked me through a few scenarios and watched my reaction. The coolest thing about usability testing is that the user is never wrong. If I couldn’t find a link or had trouble navigating the page, it was a challenge the designers and developers had to manage, not something I was doing wrong. We do testing like this at Avvo and gain a lot of valuable information about how folks not only use Avvo, but also the Internet at large.

It reminded me that no start-up would be around if it weren’t for the feedback from our users; folks letting us know that they’d like to see a certain feature improved upon, or simply suggesting an idea we ourselves hadn’t thought of before (yes, it happens!). Feedback comes to us in informal emails to customercare@avvo.com, focus groups, usability testing and good old fashioned phone calls. We are always looking for anyone interested in giving us feedback. If you think you’d like to participate in a usability study, or simply want to share your opinion with us, email me at customercare@avvo.com.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 10:38 am by Cristin Carey, Customer Care Manager and is filed under User Experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.