User testing - the process of actually putting the thing you built in front of people who are supposed to use it - is an incredibly important part of software engineering. At big companies, a UX team handles this task. With open source projects, however, user testing is often an afterthought or not thought of at all.

But you can learn so much from how users actually interact with your app. And isn't putting the thing in front of users kinda the point of making software?

This talk will cover some basics of user testing for non-UX professionals. At the end of it you won't be able to replace your UX expert (nor should you expect to), but every developer can benefit from watching how people use their products.