[Sigia-l] FREE ! Usability Audits !

[Christopher Fahey [askrom]]

Howdy,

gMeta's free usability audit
(http://www.gmeta.com/strategy/strat_expert_audit.htm) made me wonder:
Who else is doing free expert usability audits? 

I'm interested in seeing how other firms keep audit expectations low and
how they pre-qualify candidates, and I'd like to know what the audits
actually deliver. Please send me the names (um, links) of any firms you
know are providing free expert audits as part of their business
development/marketing efforts. (I'll compile and summarize for the
list.)

Also, if anyone has any experience either conducting or soliciting a
free expert audit, I'd like to hear about that too. If you were a free
audit recipient, did it provide new insights and make you feel good
about the firm providing the audit? If you were the auditor, did you
feel that you served the recipient's interests and/or increased the
likelihood of turning them into a paying client? (Again, I will
summarize for the list.)

In the interest of full disclosure: We at Behavior are considering such
an audit offer as well, but we have three concerns:
  (1) We don't want to do audits for sites that are unlikely to become
clients.
  (2) For real hot leads (potential clients) we don't want to promise
more than we can deliver (in quantity or quality).
  (3) We don't want to be scoffed at by the IA/HCI community for
cheapening and bastardizing what, for many of you, is your whole service
offering!

Please send me your links and experiences!

-Cf

[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com