Web in Focus

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Sum­mary:

Usabil­ity test­ing can greatly improve your web­site. Find out how…

Episode Top­ics:

Goals

• Are users able to acquire a basic under­stand­ing of what the site is and does?
• Can users accom­plish defined tasks?
• Mea­sure per­for­mance, accu­racy, recall, emo­tional response (Halo effect)
• Under­stand­ing your tar­get demographic
• Con­flict res­o­lu­tion between web own­ers and web designers

Types of User Testing

• A-​​B Test­ing (evo­lu­tion before revolution) — good if already have sig­nif­i­cant traffic
• focus group — tend to be skewed
• Eye track­ing
• Screen/​Voice/​Video Cap­ture — Sil­ver­back, cost effective

Method­ol­ogy Tips:

• Envi­ron­ment
• When, Who, Where to test (3 – 4 peo­ple per round
• Fre­quency of test­ing (min­i­mal v. opti­mal for best results)
• Num­ber of sub­jects required
• Instruc­tions:
  • Test­ing the site, not you; no wrong answer
  • Hon­esty please, even if it hurts
  • Think out loud
  • My not be able to answer some ques­tions until we are done
  • With your per­mis­sion we will record this session
  • Any ques­tions?
• Back­ground Questions:
  • Occu­pa­tion
  • Age (if appropriate)
  • How many hours per week on the inter­net or email?
  • Favorite sites
  • … any rel­e­vant back­ground related to the spe­cific site

You may find

• Con­fus­ing content
• Illog­i­cal Infor­ma­tion Architecture
• Unneeded con­tent or features
• Miss­ing con­tent or features
• Design flaws
  • Poorly com­mu­ni­cated clickability
  • Inad­e­quate contrast
  • Small Font Size