It is a pleasure to hear that some open source projects are conducting usability reviews :
- Wikipedia : Usability and Experience Study
- OpenStreetMap: UX Review
- any other ?
Usability reviews are of uttermost importance if you want to learn how your end users use your product. I initially thought that conducting usability reviews was complex, and involved lots of steps, but Jean-Francois Proulx definitely convinced me of the approach when I attended one of his usability talks a few months ago.
To me, this is clearly a better investment than having your market-team meet during long hours in front of screenshots trying to shape the next version of your website 