Introducing the UX Roast

We take a look at your site or application and run it through the typical usability meat grinder. But instead of certain death by bullet point or a short novella, you get a document that’s highly visual, useful and (gasp!) actually fun to read and pass around.

Tell me more

You send us your Web app, site, or software application (and a check)

"What's the difference between usability testing and a usability evaluation?"

Good question! Testing involves one-way mirrors, cameras, real users—stuff like that. Evaluations take the years of experience gleaned these testing sessions, plus familiarity with what works and doesn’t work, and “experts” give you their 2¢—without all the costly fees associated with more formal testing. Evaluations are no substitute for testing, but are great for low cost, quick and dirty advice.

"So are you selling a usability evaluation?"

Well, yes and no. Aside from being totally fun, our expert user experience roasts differ from usability evaluations in two respects:

1. We offer clear and obvious solutions. It’s not nice to tear something down without leaving some shred of hope that "yes, things can be better."
2. Our evaluations focus on the entire user experience, not just your run of the mill usability heuristics. We think it’s kind of inhuman to not think about human needs, like, oh I don’t know... emotions?!

"Should I go with a formal usability evaluation or a UX Roasting?"

That depends on your goals. If you need the appearance of professionalism that comes with a formal document, and you’re fine with people not reading past the summary of findings (the first page), then go with a formal heuristic evaluation. If you want to know what to fix (or you want to provoke people to make some changes), we think a roast is a much better option. And, we think the checklist approach to usability evaluations has some serious problems- namely with awareness of context and audience as well as producing frequently inconsistent recommendations.

"Will I get burned?"

Financially? Not at all. Emotionally... well, how thick skinned are you? We can be pretty frank in our criticism, though we do stop just short of 4 letter words and other potentially offensive material.

"Do I need to be roasted?"

Sometimes your site may just need a bit of spit ‘n polish. Sometimes you need to flush it all down the drain. A roast is a great way to determine which you need. That said, if we determine in the first few minutes of looking at your site/app/software that there’s not much value a roast can offer--we’ll stop right there. At our core, we’re idealist who want to make things work for people. We like money, but that’s not why we’re doing this.

"What do you need to get started?"

At a minimum, a description of different users and 10 tasks you might want us to evaluate. We’ll follow up with some specific questions once we learn a little more about your company, your situation, etc.

"Will you give me a score or something at the end?"

No. We'd rather you focus on things to fix, vs a pass/fail grade. If you are into that kind of thing, we have a few firms we can recommend.

"Can you translate this into business value? e.g what will this save me or get me?"

We could, Yes. For some extra $$. But that’s not our core focus. At a minimum, we will provide a recommendation for what you should do next. But generally speaking, the changes we recommend and the cost to make those changes are far outweighed by cost savings, increased registration, and other financial upsides. We can play with some financial models and show you the money, but you should really leave that to the accounting department.

These guys know what they're doing! Don't let the fun packaging make you think twice about the value of their advice—these guys are top notch and have the chops to prove it...

Director, Global consulting company

If you've had software developers creating your user interface, it's time for a splash of cold water- the UX Roast is exactly that.

Vice President, Travel Company

The best time I've ever had being embarrassed of my startup

CEO, Startup