Usability testing services to identify user problems to improve your website

No-one would launch a new product onto the market without testing it, yet every day, websites are published that have broken links, obstacles and barriers to the user, confusing architecture and more.

Usability testing is concerned with the experience that your users have. In general it aims to predict likely problems your users will encounter on your website. Testing with users achieves this by actually observing normal people (or those in your target group) using your website.

We offer website testing on two levels

Expert heuristic evaluation

A usability specialist tests, reviews and evaluates the website focusing on the user experience. Cognitive walk-throughs, identification of barriers to the user completing tasks, architecture, user interface, navigation and orientation. Readability of the text content and more.

User Testing

By carrying out user testing, it conclusively identifies the problems that users do have when using your website. No speculation, no arguments or debates between the development team and marketing department, or between the client and the web developer. Conclusive evidence.

User testing involves recruiting people (users) who will use your website under observation. They are in as realistic a situation as possible (as this improves the results) and are asked to carry out tasks that are specifically developed to be relevant to the website being tested.

The users are facilitated through the process and observed by a usability expert.

The results are collated and analysed and feedback is provided. The emphasis is firmly on the qualitative as this has been proven to produce the most cost effective results for small-scale testing.

Note that usability testing is NOT carrying out focus groups. In a focus group situation - where people are asked their opinion of things and their likes and dislikes, there is a common tendency for the participants to respond in a way that they think is socially acceptable in the situation, or to agree or disagree with someone else present. That is not to say that focus groups are no good, but they are not particularly useful when it comes to testing a website. In short, when it comes to using the internet, what people say they will do and what they actually do in a real or simulated situation are often very different.

INTERNET MARKETING
How to Get a Website that Works for Your Business

by Nigel T Packer
Internet Marketing Consultant at
Business for Business Internet Marketing Ltd

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