GoKawiilActivityBot developer pays users €25/hour to stress-test README onboarding
The maintainer of ActivityBot recruited volunteers via Mastodon, offering €25 for an hour, to watch them attempt the project's install instructions on a video call while narrating their thought process. The exercise, funded as part of an NLnet grant application, surfaced a broken demo link, confusion over renaming hidden files, inconsistent quoting conventions, unexplained jargon, and jokes that puzzled rather than amused readers.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The experiment illustrates how developer-written documentation often encodes assumptions invisible to its authors, and suggests that direct observation of real users can expose friction points that self-review misses. Framing usability testing as a funded research task within a grant application could offer a template other open-source maintainers might adopt to justify spending time and money on documentation quality.
- Paid volunteer testing exposed multiple real usability gaps in a README
- Issues included broken links, unclear terminology, and confusing humor
- The testing was funded through an NLnet grant application for ActivityBot
Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 — Great for developers running usability sessions or screen-recording onboarding tests, letting you trigger OBS scenes, mute mics, and switch windows instantly during a video call with testers. It keeps your focus on the user's experience with your README instead of fumbling through menus.
See Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: shkspr.mobi — Terence Eden, 2026-10-11
Published there as: “I paid people to try and follow my README”
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