The Importance of Usability Testing

When you designed and built your website you likely had a goal (or goals) in mind of what exactly you wanted user to do when they got there. Whether you’re selling a product, service or your site has some other call to action, you or your team have likely sat in a lot of website meetings debating questions like these:

• “If we move the (whatever) button “here” will it bring in more business or cause people to abandon our website?”
• “What information should be featured on the home page? Is this too much text? Or too little?”
• “How glitzy should our site be – does it need to be more or less Web 2.0…Web 3.0?”
• “Are the colors too bright or not bright enough?”
• “Should we use a drop-down here, or a bulletted list?”

These questions are of course just a few examples, but if any sound familiar, you might be struggling with some website usability issues.

In its simplest form, your website should drive users to logically and easily perform all the desired actions you’d like them to perform (whether that be a purchase, or registration, download, etc.). For optimal usability, your website should always:

• Present your information to the user in a clear, logical and concise way.
• Put the most important thing in the right place on a web page or a web application.
• Present the correct choices to users at the right time, in a very obvious way (with little or no room for error).
• As much as humanly possible, remove any uncertainty regarding the outcome of an action (e.g. clicking on delete/remove/purchase buttons).

Chances are that over time, additions of content, services or actions to your site pages might have inadvertently muddied the waters of optimal usability. As part of any healthy web strategy, we recommend going through Usability Testing at least once a year.

Don’t just assume. TEST!

It’s natural for us to each bring our personal preferences and our professional perspectives to the web team – and to think that our way is the best/right way. ‘If it makes sense to me, it’ll make sense to everybody’ is a dangerous web philosophy to have, especially when you can take your day-to-day interaction with the site for granted.

There’s a very good chance you are not the typical example of your site visitors:

• As an employee/manager/owner, you know what your site is trying to say, however your site visitor is likely from well outside your context.
• You know your organization’s vocabulary – whereas your visitors most likely won’t.
• You know your site’s workflow and how all parts of the site fit together – but your visitors will have to figure that out.

Don’t waste time…or money. TEST!

Instead of operating on assumptions about your site visitors, get a few of them to try out the site. You’ll find out a lot about other people and about your site. Objective “testers” can help show you what works and what doesn’t work because it’s all about them, not about us. In usability testing, you watch a few people struggle so you know how to fix the web site and save thousands or millions of people from the same problems.

Usability testing can help you and your team:

• Challenges your assumptions and or personal opinions
• Resolve internal arguments that lack data
• Save your site visitors from pain, frustration, and failure for them to do what you want them to do
• MOST IMPORTANTLY: Saves you and your organization time, effort, money, and reputation.

New to Usability Testing? Here’s some quick tips to get you started:

• Pick an issue and run with it. Don’t try to solve all your website’s problems in one go.
• Determine the most critical issue and design a test plan that is focused around that issue.
• Don’t shy away from issues that might stir up controversy; those are the problems that user testing solve best.

Recruiting testers doesn’t have to hurt. If you have never done user testing before you might be surprised what you could learn from a friend or family member and may be a great place to “practice”. However, your ideal tester is someone who is part of your primary audience. Inviting people on your Twitter or Facebook fan page can be an easy way to do this. If that doesn’t work, services like UserTesting.com can be a very economical solution for testing and recruiting ($39/per user test).

Rewarding your testers doesn’t need to be expensive or difficult. Offer testers a $25 Amazon gift certificate for participating. All you need is their email address.
Can’t meet face-to-face? Do it remotely. Gone are the days of conducting usability tests in a lab. You can connect with testers using tools like Adobe Acrobat ConnectNow, WebEx, or GoToMeeting. These tools allow you to view and record the tester’s screen and their webcam at the same time. Plus, most offer 30 day free trials.

Other online research tools can supplement your usability testing. There are a whole host of simple web applications that you can use. Some integrate with your site and others are accessible via a web link. These applications allow you to collect specific information about where people click and how they use your navigation. (Usabilla, WebSort, CrazyEgg to name a few. More listed here). Be careful, these tools are no replacement for sitting down and watching someone use your website.

Seems overwhelming or not sure how start your own usability testing? ImageX can help you…

• Plan your next user testing project
• Administer the test
• Analyze the results
• Integrate third-party tools
• Make improvements to your website’s usability

We also offer regular user testing as part of our service agreements. Contact me if you would like to know more.

The earlier you test and the earlier you fix problems, the easier (and cheaper) the fixes are. Don’t wait. Don’t risk. Test.