In the world of interactivity, the importance of user testing is drastically underestimated. Designers love to think that users will use their site the way they designed it without any hesitation and that everything is obvious. It’s nearly impossible to find a major flaw in something you’ve designed from the ground up.
A single user test can change all that very quickly as it has for me time and time again. The misconception of user testing is that it’s expensive and ultimately not worth it. There are many services that will gather “qualified participants” to user test your site or app for a reasonable sum. These services get the job done but you can bootstrap your own round of user testing for free.
Small scale user testing is an idea triumphed by Steve Krug in his wonderful usability book Don’t Make Me Think. His concepts are really solid and he preaches that even doing a single user test looking over the shoulder of a friend can do wonders for your site.
