Silverback Is Giving Back
Silverback is a new application, by Clearleft, that allows website (and regular old desktop software) developers to perform some usability testing by linking a video screen capture with a iSight capture. All you do is fire up Silverback, then sit your user down and have them interact with your application (or website). Silverback will record both video streams and audio from the mic.
In a trial use I ran it on Moneydance and immediately noticed some areas our UI could be improved for real usability gains. The reason for this of course is that I was able to see the face of the user (me) and figure out pretty quickly where I was having trouble or getting frustrated.
Of course the entire concept of this application assumes you have a bunch of users you can have sit down at your mac and make use your applications. This might not be as readily feasible for most indie developers, but I suspect a good amount of us will benefit from this sort of real world feedback.
Technology aside what really impresses me is Clearleft’s promise to donate 10% of the profits from Silverback to The Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund. I’m glad to see more and more developers are starting to see charity as an inextricable part of being a good citizen, a citizen both of the nebulous Mac indie dev community but also of the world at large.