User Testing Experience

So as of now, our group SMK2 has gone through 2 full rounds of user testing. User testing is a process that tests the prototype on individuals who were not involved in creating a game. The objective is to find out the usability of the game and the different problems (such as navigational, instructional, or the flow of the game) the game may have. A lot of times, when the creator makes a game, they don't find these problems because they are already familiar with the game. We assume the audience knows what we know. This is where the user testing kicks in. 

It's quite interesting actually, i've gone through 3 different user testings for three different interface/games. Each time, before the testing begins, i felt quite confident on the actual interface/game. But once the testing begins, i often find out problems that are common to all the testers. As a result, the actual interface/game after user testing usually looks drastically different than it used to. 

This time, when we tested out the games, we found that there were a lot of instructional problems and that the game may be too wordy. As a result, players get frustrated and skip through and click until they get the answer right. After the initial testing, we had to build the game from scratch all over again. It was a pain because we had to figure out a new way to build the game, but it did work a lot better. So the new game went through the second round of testing. This time, although there are still a lot of changes, we don't need to rebuild the whole thing all over again. 

So it's no wonder that user testing is so crucial. I just wonder if all the applications, interfaces, games etc that i used went through a ton of user testing processes. 

How did all your user testing sessions go?