usability and web-savvy

Last week we went to usability testing where we sat behind a two-way mirror and watched a moderator ask people questions and try to perform certain tasks on our new site. Overall, the site performed well and we got really constructive feedback on how we can improve it prior to launch.

I was impressed by how web-savvy everyone was. Most referred to the navigation and form elements by the technical names. They talked about list boxes, tabbed-headers and databases. When I commented on this being due to the fact that we were in Southern California another attendee said that they same thing happens in the Midwest or in the South. Pretty neat.

Most were excited about new site and receptive to its business model. There was one cynic though. During one of the interviews a guy pointed to the two-way mirror and called us the "Harvard people behind the glass". I wanted to knock on the window and say, "hey man, I went to Yale."