This week is the second round of prototyping for a large new community site ZAAZ is developing for a major (and favorite) client. The site is focused around sharing of user-generated content objects as a product value-ad, and it's also meant to reshape the way people think of the brand.
The first round of testing was based on paper prototypes. We used the RITE method. We made huge advances, in particular in understanding the motivations behind various levels of user participation. In a nutshell, we learned (and were able to prove, and show) that people are much more motivated to participate in a community site by the richness of the social rewards surrounding participation than they are by extrinsic motivators like a contest. That might be old news for community types, but for companies investing in major community initiatives, the fear of throwing the lame party nobody comes to is significant and understandable. Paper prototyping is a great way to prove the community concept.
I'll be saying this another thousand times: There is no substitute for watching users interact with a site while it's still in design. This week, testing with a functional prototype, we're learning:
- Stuff we suspected but weren't sure about
- Some stuff we worried about is working fine
- Some stuff we weren't worrying about isn't working well
- Users understand structure in ways we'd never have imagined
- In two months of design, we didn't think of everything. Some of these things are important and seem obvious in retrospect.
This site is going to rock, and we'd never have gotten there by relying on our own judgment and expertise.
Here's a cameraphone shot of the ZAAZ usability lab in action.
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