Interfaces, User Testing, and Blackberries

So, when I heard about the not so new anymore Blackberry touch (the Storm), I figured it would be a great thing even if they like everyone else were jumping on the iPhone bandwagon. The scroll-wheel Blackberry was good, the one with the little ball instead of the scroll-wheel was good... but no, bad assumption on my part. How could they have gotten it wrong, though, after two good products? Both Stephen Fry and David Pogue denigrate the thing into the ground.

Did they not user test?

Relatedly, it is rather sad to see Clay Shirkey's post over at boingboing about his delight at user testing and immediate improvements by Meetup. It's sad because this kind of thing should be common. It's not a new idea, and it is easy to implement these days and has been for a while. File under, could have told you that.