iambic9 - 12:39 am on Feb 17, 2010 (gmt 0)

Google has admitted to BBC News that testing of its controversial social network Buzz was insufficient (my emphasis)

I doubt the testing was insufficient, more probably, it was inefficient. If you hand a new "product" to testees and ask them what they think and so on, the reaction is most likely going to be good (if the product is any good), because the nature of what testers are doing has rendered them happy to play around with a new feature – it's what they're signed up to do.

Question is, did google keep this new project completely secret until the last minute and then thrust it on testees personal google mail accounts without asking them to be involved, or really telling them what it is, or what is going on – and then carefully monitor that reaction?

I'm guessing they didn't, because that was the only way google was going to get some accurate results that may have prevented them from doing something rather silly. I found buzz rudely bolted onto my google mail without notice, and it's just not something you would do if you had thought to test for the "Surprise! we've just invaded your mailbox with an unwanted buggy, privacy invading killer app" scenario.

I think they tested ok, they just didn't run the right test. Who cares about product usability if nobody wants to use the product.