http://peek.usertesting.com/result/92954547470?autoplay=true

To the reviewer, please, if you read this, come back or come into our IRC chat room and hang out! We can explain everything : )

this is fantastic haha

isis realife... ? haha xD

all n00bz. come in and play with funucation!!! :DD

Swear to God, that better boost Curious's ego permanently.

He got the pronunciation of donload right

That was great...Kinda like my first time coming to this website
n00b what? b00n what? donload what? begast? lyceum?
So I guess we didn't score to well on "usability"? hehehehe

So, in response to this, you could have one of those popups where the merchant normally shows up on the front page if you're not logged in, saying "New to the website? Click here to get your bearings!"

You should also have something saying SUBMISSIONS CLOSED or something when a battle is in the voting period.

In addition to Tilde's suggestion I request that the Forum be again labeled the Academy. For further n00b obfuscation

going to watch this video any time i am feeling sad as a cure

WOW THIS IS GOOD

summed up my experiences at least

this is brilliant. we should do a "revenge of botb usability" compo, a la this one:

http://battleofthebits.com/arena/Battle/842/Revenge+of+Detroit+VII/

lots of incredible sound bites in here :3

God I love how excited he is about the website despite being so baffled by it.

we should redesign site to show meme on front page :)

memes are funny because i am old, but at the same time cool and hip

i make alt rock

regressive progressive rock

@Tilde Bwaahahahahahaaa. It sure did. It definitely made my day better. XD

How am I supposed to react to an outsider coming in and instantly being amazed by my crappy tune? I don't.... whaa.... I give up. I can not feel anything but confusion.

It is true that the design of this website is confusing but I didn't have that much trouble with figuring out what to do when I joined. :P

yeah, on a serious note, it was actually the unique design and slightly obfuscated feel that really drew me in when i first found botb. and it also makes it a bit more fun if you slowly discover all the intricacies of the botb world, instead of it being totally clear right away... in other words, all n00bz ;)

I had some technical difficulties myself when I first entered, mainly from website design. The lyceum was the one that I could at least partially understand, although I still had to ask from time to time. I already knew OHCs thanks to #mod_shrine and #modulez, although at first I failed to keep my identity a secret through the track names. You could probably still figure it out stylistically.

Wait, you understood one thing, and it was the lyceum?

I think the most obvious thing he missed was the "Signup" link. That would have solved a lot of his problems.

totally agree with xterm

@SketchMan3 As well as the "about" and "voting period" countdown timer!

It's nice to know he got the basic premise of the site!!

I thoroughly enjoyed this, kinda wish he could join us and have a chat ahah

While I do enjoy the intentional obfuscaty of this site's design, I think we could use a more prominent suggestion somewhere that the way to understanding is IRC.

Doesn't need to be on the main page, maybe you have to hunt around for it, but I think we need a stronger hint here and there that implies something like: "there are people waiting for you 24/7 to explain how to use this site". (Don't say it this strongly, but the hint should be there.)

how about "come have a chat with your fellow botbrs :D/"
edit: nah it isnt exactly a mere hint

<marquee><a href="misc/J/chat.html">Chats</a></marquee>

He liked the music enough to come back, that's what matters. I'm a little bit bummed that he didn't register right away though, because that would've made the voting screens come up and made it more obvious that the entry period ended, and so on.

It also means that a complete n00b doesn't understand "Lyceum" (which means library.)

like nobody knows the word lyceum even exists till they come here

i knew mkstar26

This was great!
I also had some trouble getting used to the site. In fact i found it kinda daunting and I didn't really participate in anything for a while after I registered. IRC was the way to go :3

Ok so...no joke...I didnt know for the longest time that the site hat a wiki...or a lyceum. I think i clicked it maybe once but didnt get it and didnt bother to look again. Also i find the forum to be hard to browse through. So in my first OHB i didnt know what a sample pack was and what to do with it. Probably sounds really stupid, but it was also fun (at least for me :3 ).

I agree absolutely with what xterm said. I still chuckle at the spelling errors on the site once in a while and I think it is all part of the fun of botb.

Other questions that I asked myself as a n00b:
"So...I can change my palette but I can't save it and I can't use other palettes for my own, so why are they there?" The solution: I was b00n broke...gotta OHB more :D/

I was here thinking...what if the first song the guy heard was this one (or this one), how would have he reacted?

What's the status on Operation Find This Guy?

I found this email but I doubt it'll help: peek@usertesting.com
Edit: One could try sending an email to this address asking for a way to contact Tim (or Jim? my hearing can be awful sometimes), the one who did the usability test for battleofthebits.com? Idk

What if Tim went here to make the vid today? (1/4)