Results

Usability testing for websites has gone from a nice option for big companies to a necessity for everyone. Real-world users are more demanding than ever before, and web-based companies are putting practices in place that ensure the best experience for users of all descriptions. However, a good user experience is made up of several different key factors, some of which are based in psychology and some of which are purely technical. In order to ensure the best customer experience, you should consider not only your user’s gut reaction to your site, but also their computer’s gut reaction.

Conducting user testing on a website is generally designed to measure the psychological aspects of usability. The goal is to see how a sample user will find the information or product they need, if they’re able to intuitively navigate the site, and their first impressions of your company or product based on the site. A good example of this can be found in the testing done by the usability team at Bungie and Microsoft prior to the release of Halo 3. They carefully tested all the aspects of game play to ensure that players were having fun, that the tasks were not too difficult, and that the game flowed smoothly from one scene to the next.

This can also be accomplished when building a website for public use. You can recruit participants at a coffee shop, from employees, or from friends and family to explore your site and critique the design. To get the most detailed responses, consider asking the following questions:

• How did you find out ….?
• What did you expect to see when you …?
• Was it clear what steps you were supposed to take?
• What do you think would happen if you…?
• What features did you find particularly useful/useless?
• Did you find that text/photo/video helpful or distracting?
• How does this experience compare to our competitors?
• What questions would you like to see in our FAQ?

Answering these questions will give you a complete picture of how users react to your site’s design and architecture. This psychology-based approach can help you push out new features or pare down existing features based on your customer’s expectations.

Another aspect of usability, however, is the actual nuts and bolts of your site. How long does it take to load? How fast is your user’s connection? Can your site handle a huge spike in traffic? These are the hidden aspects of usability, and they’re often overlooked since much of the testing is done internally. Here are some important metrics to test your website’s technical performance:

• Connection speed
• Browser used
• Objects loaded
• Time to load
• Video playback
• User location
• Peak usage times

Making a list of checkpoints like the one above can help you conduct comprehensive performance evaluations. This will remind you to test your website on a dial-up connection using Internet Explorer 6, or on an office broadband using Safari.

Internet users are becoming less and less patient, and a slow load time or incomplete experience can make the difference between making a sale and losing a customer. Even if your design is beautiful and your architecture is intuitive, you still could be turning away customers because of technical shortcomings. There are plenty of tools out there to help test website performance, and one of the leaders in this industry is Gomez. They have web-based products to implement website monitoring on all levels, as well as white papers to help you educate yourself about optimization techniques.

Remember, today’s internet audience is sophisticated, demanding, and fickle. They can, and will, go to a competing website if they cannot quickly and easily find what they need on yours. Usability practices, both technical and psychological, can make the difference between retaining or driving away customers.

Thursday, March 20th, 2008 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

By Haley January Eckels