Just had an idea, which I’ve mailed to the Geekup mailing list, and thought I’d post here.
I’ve been really impressed with recently released Silverback App – a Mac app, that utilises screen recording and the webcam on (recent) macs, to create a combined screen cam of people using an application.
It’s a brilliant way to create usability tests (I’ve achieved this before by using video cameras – it’s a pain in the ass).
So, how about if you (er, me!) bought a copy of Silverback for say, 10 of your most ‘engaged’ (mac using) customers; with the proviso that they use it to complete a couple of pre-determined tasks you set them.
It’s a good deal all round – you get, for £25 each, a great insight into a customer’s use of your app, your customer gets to help you make the app better, and a free licence for some cool software.
£250 would buy a nicely distributed bit of usability insight into your app, and maybe you could use the 10 customers in the future with this app to test new features etc?
It’s always difficult getting good *real* customer insight (vs. randomly selected testers etc), and it really would be a cool way to share and test new features with a group of selected customers.
Wonder if they do bulk licence discounts?