Whitney Hess asked software entrepreneurs at the monthly meeting of New York’s Ultra Light Startups pow wow for a show of hands: how many people sat down with a potential customer and did user experience studies in the design phase of a site?

Silence. Few if any. Her followup: why?

Because it’s hard. That’s the best answer I got.

There are so many horrible interfaces out there, and I’m afraid that I’m going to unintentionally create one. A bad interface is one in which there’s a mismatch between the model presented to the user, and the actual model. The problem with developers is that they have intimate knowledge of the actual model, and so it’s near impossible to step back in such a way that they can then see that the presentation doesn’t match.

Watch here for future usability testing experiences with S7.

What did I think about ULS? Though I have one startup behind me with a successful exit, S7 Labs is something entirely different, from both a technology and business angle. For one thing, Athena had the very nice property where we were able to stick our heads in the ground and code away, and within a few months we were profitable.

Standing Room, however, is a totally different ball game. I actually have to talk to people. The users are my lifeblood, and aren’t necessarily technologically savvy. It’s like Mars and Venus.

I figured I should explore this alien thing called networking, and thus I checked out the ULS group. They have a nice system going: introduce yourself by giving a 60 second pitch, mingle, then have a panel discussion with some experts. The pitches were all fantastic, and some of the ideas were pretty novel.

I immediately jumped to some conclusions about the group, mostly because my first night there mirrored my experience with writing groups. I’ll withhold public judgement for now. What I will say is that it was definitely an instructive experience, and I did meet some good people, which is precisely the point.

ULS meets monthly (usually the first week). Check out the website if you’re interested, and perhaps I’ll see you there.