Tags: silverback

It’s been a busy week for Clearleft. I wasn’t in the office for the start of the week though; I was in up north delivering some Ajax training to the good people at the Library of the University of Liverpool. Alas, due to construction work, I didn’t have the chance to peruse the world-famous science fiction collection. I’ll just have to return to Merseyside sometime when the builders are gone.

I made it back to Brighton in time to press the proverbial button and launch the website of Silverback, the project that’s been keeping a portion of Clearleft very busy for a while now.

It’s been fascinating to watch Silverback take shape from the spark of an idea from Andy to the conflagration that is desktop software development. It’s been a learning experience for everyone involved. If you want to delve into all the details, be sure to read Garrett’s in-depth look at Silverback.

I didn’t have that much to do with the development. In fact, all I did was mark up and style the website (oh, and integrate the PayPal stuff …joy). Still, I’ve found myself caught up in the excitement of an honest-to-goodness product launch. We’ve all been tracking the feedback on Twitter and on blogs. On the whole, it seems like people really, really like it. But what’s far more important than whether people do or don’t buy this piece of software is the fact that people are talking about usability testing.

Silverback is all about usability testing — Rich has summed up exactly what Silverback does nicely. It’s a Mac app that we built to scratch our own itch. We wanted a way to be able to run usability tests quickly and cheaply.

Usability testing is one of those things that always seems to be amongst the first to get cut from projects, usually because of cost or time concerns. Maybe Silverback can help tip the balance back in favour of doing at least some usability testing even if it’s really quick’n’dirty.

I’m constantly amazed by just how far a little user-testing goes. The analysis of the results needn’t be time-consuming either. Having a handful of people try out your wireframes can lead to forehead-slapping revelations of obvious issues.

So I’m really happy that, if nothing else, Silverback will encourage more people to think about doing some quick usability tests. I guarantee that after just one round, the benefits will be so self-evident that usability testing will become indispensable.

There’s one other forthcoming release that I’m hoping will spur on the growth of usability testing. It’s not another piece of software. A little birdie tells me that Steve Krug—author of the classic Don’t Make Me Think—is writing a new book on… yup, quick and easy usability testing.

The rewards of usability testing are within reach for the price of one book and one piece of ~$50 dollar software.