A General Assembly student testing out Paddl during an event run by CareerLounge.

UA Testing at General Assembly

Since the launch of Paddl, the engineering team at CareerLounge has been running in overdrive to make the product the best it can be. In order to make sure we’re nailing the solution on the head, we’re constantly in need of feedback from our users (read: students). Luckily for us, the team at General Assembly teamed up with us to run a UA testing session over some good old pizza and beer.

The CareerLounge team (Luke, Grace and Nick) arrived at the General Assembly Melbourne Headquarters on Wednesday May 25, equipped with iPads, demo Paddl accounts, and product performance sheets to conduct a User Acceptance (UA) test.

Our resident Software Developer and Purveyor of Game of Thrones theories, Luke Shillabeer greeted the students with a quick overview of the product and its history. He then unleashed the forty or so students on the product to navigate their way around it and provide feedback for us. We were lucky enough to have students from two different courses (UX Design and Web Development) and at various stages of completion. This gave us an incredible combination of minds that would create the perfect pressure to be placed on Paddl.

UXDI students hard at work putting Paddl to the test.

Halfway through the session backup arrived in the form of a case of Pure Blonde and twelve pizzas to feed our hungry testers. In the blink of an eye, nearly all of the stock had been consumed and the students were back at their screens working away.

Luke was circling the room, attending to issues and answering questions, while Grace was lurking in the shadows snapping some awesome pics of the day and collecting data sheets as everyone started finishing up.

When the session came to a close we had successfully collected over thirty completed product performance sheets with some great feedback and insights about the Paddl product, its functionality, design and overall look. Mission accomplished.

Testing Paddl on a range of devices and browsers.

Thanks so much to our friends at General Assembly for being such good sports about the day. We gathered an overwhelming amount of really helpful data that will shape the journey ahead for Paddl.

Are you a current student looking to gain experience in real-world product tests? We’re always looking to find new people to get them involved with future tests of CareerLounge applications. Get in touch with us to find out more!