Written by Nadia Volpe
Last week’s Swiss Usability Night reminded us why these gatherings matter and just why we enjoy them as much as we do. You don’t always need a giant conference hall to bring up some interesting points, just a group of testers, designers, curious minds, and two very different products put in front of them.
In this edition, on November 13th, we were joined by our community to do what it does best: poke, explore, question, challenge, and compare notes over an Apéro. It’s a small format, but the energy never is. These evenings exist because usability doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens through real people, real reactions, and real feedback that product teams may struggle to get otherwise.
Two different products. Same spirit of testing.
We got a first look at Defai’s early demo: a self-reflection and strategy tool built to help founders step off the hamster wheel. Think of it as a “McKinsey in a box” advisor-in-a-box that turns daily logs into biographies, identifies patterns, detects blind spots, and generates action plans, all without retaining data.
By uploading a CV or analysis, the AI evaluates strengths and weaknesses, creates a biography, and produces prioritised action items with detailed foresight for each step, while ensuring zero data retention to protect confidentiality.
Our testers pushed it hard:
T&Cs couldn’t be accepted
PDF uploads weren’t working
Some buttons were rather unclear, and others were hidden as if they owed someone money
Our second challenge was to explore the new Bagel Boys website, a platform designed to make ordering fresh bagels simple.
While well designed and creative, as with many newer products, there were a few issues found.
Our second challenge was to explore the new Bagel Boys website, a platform designed to make ordering fresh bagels simple.
While well designed and creative, as with many newer products, there were a few issues found. From minor UX inconsistencies to translation gaps, highlighting how even a seemingly simple website can hide potential pitfalls:
Incomplete translations: While the English version of the site is available, certain key terms, like “pickup date,” remained untranslated, creating potential confusion for international users.
Hidden navigation & unclear calls to action: Some options, such as the checkout button, were small or less visible, which could impact conversion and usability.
Terms and conditions acceptance: Some flows could not proceed because of strict or unclear terms acceptance rules, showing the importance of flexible and user-friendly design.
Price list accessibility: Only available in German, even when the website language is set to English, highlighting the need for consistent multilingual support.
These observations in both segments of the evening encouraged discussion about how QA and usability testing uncover hidden pain points, and how early feedback can guide iterative improvements before a full product launch. It also showed that even fun, food-related apps benefit from rigorous testing: every bug caught now prevents user frustration later.
Why Swiss Usability Night matters for the Swiss Testing Day community
These nights are the “pressure-free playgrounds” for everything we care about as testers and quality advocates.
They help us:
see how products behave when real users stop being polite,
stay close to new tools, new ideas, and emerging problems,
build connections outside of formal conferences, and
keep usability at the heart of quality conversations.
Swiss Testing Day is built on this same belief: quality is a community muscle. These evenings keep that muscle active between conferences.
A big thank you…
To Sandeep for bringing Defai, to Bagel Boys for the website preview, and to everyone who participated.
We hope to see you at the next one, and of course, at Swiss Testing Day.
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