"They went and made a better idiot"

You’ve probably heard the old adage that as soon as you make your Web site “idiot proof” they’ll go and make a better idiot. No offense intended to any user of any Web site, but people do the most amazing things. I’m in the midst of user testing for a client, and again I’m seeing people do things that I never would have expected. Here are some of my favorite “what are they thinking” moments from recent user testing: - Users putting their own name in the “last name” field on a Find a Doctor search. - Selecting a city and a county in a Find a Doctor search, only the city isn’t in the county they chose. - Filling out a Find a Doctor search form and then clicking the “go” button on the site search in the top bar. - Users closing the browser and starting all over if they aren’t happy with where they wound up. - Hovering the cursor over the link for “Classes and events” and saying, “I can’t find any classes or events.” And so many more. Oh, but here’s the beauty in all of this:  There are fixes for all of these. Okay, maybe not the last one, but the rest can most definitely be fixed. That’s why I love user testing.  I’ve had people tell me that users would never put their own name in the “last name” field in a Find a Doctor search, but I’ve seen it so many times I shouldn’t need to test to know to label the field “Doctor’s last name.” You can argue that these people constitute a “better idiot,” but I’d argue that they are your users. If you didn’t test, how would you ever learn these things?  You’re probably sick of hearing, “the customer is always right.”  But in the Web world, the user is always right. Make your site work for them, or you risk losing them.