Website development

It goes without saying that an exceptional web development company can really make a huge difference to the entire perspective of a company as it sets up its own website. It will help you get more traffic to your page in the right manner.  It is imperative that you build up customised web applications so that there are more eyeballs attracted to your website.  Customers and new browsers would love to visit the site as they would find it pleasant.  This would help in increasing the sales which is good for the overall growth of your company.

Your website should basically define the brand image of your company.  Hence, it is important to identify the best web development company which would help in boosting the brand image you always desired.  Make sure to interview the executive of the company on the basics of the design and the techniques and methods they are going to adopt for designing the site.  Check out their market standing and the number of years they are in this business.  Do they have efficient and qualified staff for handling the business?  Their website would give you a fair idea of how they are going to go about creating your webpage.  If you find it attractive and appealing and are able to connect to it, then obviously they would give a productive output.

The staff quality and the repute of the company are very important factors which should not be ignored.  A slide presentation from their end would help greatly in deciding their proficiency and expertise in their field.  Get their portfolio so that you can decide easily whether you need to hire their services or not.

It may not always be necessary to hire the services of a professional web development company.  There are many freelancers who have the expertise in this field and who do full justice to the client’s requirements.  With such individuals who work alone, you could strike a good deal and in fact many of these individuals, have a good working experience and can come up with a smart webpage.

Do not ignore the fact that choosing a smart web developer amongst so many of them can be quite confusing.  There are a few things one should consider when choosing the developer.  Once you are clear on what exactly are your requirements, then choosing the web developer and explaining it to them becomes much easier and simpler.

There are many web development companies who have expertise in a particular field.  Hence, check out for some companies who are able to give you what you desire.  Evaluating the potential of this company and the value added services which they would be extending is very important before settling for any particular company.  Check out the entire package extended by them and whether it covers all your requirements like copywriting and marketing.  Never miss out on reference checks and names of other clients with whom they have worked.  You could get in touch with these clients and decide on yourself whether to hire them or not.

The budget is also the deciding factor for hiring the company.  If you are on a tight budget, ideally you should go for budding companies who might give you value for your money.

In the usability article in user centred design, the factors below were identified as one of the most important factors required to create a user centred website that is usable. The 6 primary factors were identified as:Important Factors:
·    Sites primary objective
·    Who is the target audience and their web user skills
·    Potential tasks and goals of the user
·    How would the users expect the site to work
·    How easy will your site be for users

At the point a sixth but less well know factor is the speed at which users access your website. Because of the wide spread availability of broadband, we too for granted that there are significant numbers of users who are still using dial up or have very basic broadband that could not support the demanding graphics web designers tends to use in modern web designs.

Web designer are used to testing completed design projects in various browsers, perhaps they may also was to compare broadband to see how their website downloads using broadband speed test this is not a regular occurrence among web designers so if you are unsure of which broadband provider can give you competitively priced access then you may want to compare prices before you sign up with one.

Most of the time, you can easily see the school of though a web designer leans towards in their web design. Web designer from a graphic design background tends to be high in visual element of the website, design eye catching websites with very little use of text, there are some website that are actually completely made from graphic without a single text a spider can read.
There other design who go in the opposite direction, loads of text with very little graphics. From search engine optimisation view point, this is actually great but from usability point of view, its almost as bad as the site design entirely with graphics.  The best sites are somewhere in between the two methods.

One mistake some designer make is that the lose focus of the purpose or a website, a website that is not and information site basically want to sell something to you, a designer should get to the point without too much irrelevant information.  One case in point is a website recently reviewed by Temi.ro , the site is and adult dating site, the previous version of the site (see image 1)

Very Naughty old version

was quite heavy on text, does not place information about the services and call to action link that will help visitors make up their mind quickly in a prominent place. The result was that the site gets a lot of visitors but also loses most of the.

The site was recently redesigned with help from Temi.ro. (see image 2). It was emphasised to the designer that importance of presenting information and arranging functions and call to action links or button in a way that makes the maximum use of the screen space without the need for users to scroll before accessing required information.
The new design was also requested to keep all the text from the old site and use H tags instead of bold tag for paragraph headlines. The final result of the new design was and eye catching website with straight forward link functions and call to action links. As at the time of writing this post, the site owner has recorded 10% drop in bounce rate.

Haven been a webmaster for many years, I am quite versed in most aspects of webmastering such as website development, search engine marketing, and various other tasks required to keep a website online and well ranked. I also know aspects of usability, including the importance of creating user centred website, so you can add awareness of usability issues to my webmasters skills, however when it come to more technical aspects of usability, I bow to the expertise of my good friend Rob Campbell of Best Web Image, a usability specialist.

When Rob praised zappos .com ecommerce website for its user friendliness in a blog on his website, I had to take another look at zappos to analyse how the site was put together to achieve the user friendliness that won praises from Rob in the hope that I can  learn a few tricks of the usability trade that I can apply to the ecommerce shopping cart application I am currently working on.

I have never visited or heard of Zappos before, it is a huge online fashion retail website. The site is well laid out, with the navigation menu at the top of the site leads to various departments such as Clothing, Shoes, Accessories and Brands. The is a huge search form with form filed you can enter the item you are looking for or just click under the search form at popular searches which takes you straight to one of the several popular keywords previous visitors to the site used to find information.

After spending about five minutes at the site, I can see the reason Rob Campbell things highly of Zappos. One or the things that impresses me most about the site does not even have anything to do with usability, its the strong customer centred policy of Zappos; you can return items bought from the site withing 365 days, that is, you can buy items from them and return it within one year of purchase to change or have your money back.

Planet Golf UK Usability Review

Planet Golf UK is a leading online golf equipment store. They specialise in fitting junior golfers clothing, accessories, shoes, golf clubs, practice equipment such as nets, balls, wedges, woods irons, basically, everything a junior golfer needs to take him or her from junior golf to the senior circuit.

This website was tested for usability. Some of the factors born in mind is the fact that its primary audience are junior golfers, most of the time, the mother rather than this golfers themselves do the shopping for their equipment hence navigation, ease of use especially for the female user was tested. The site was found to be adequate but quite a number of things needed to be done to make is a perfect site for its target audience to use.

The site has a splash page which features images to aid navigation, under the images category names which leads to various sections of the site such as bags, clothing, electric trolleys, travel cover and various other categories. One of the observations of the review was the fact that you cannot order an item directory from the homepage, you have to navigate to the category first before you can access product details where you can expand the item and add it to your shopping cart. In total you need to click about three times before you can add a product to your shopping cart.

One folder deep from the homage, you have the golf shop which is where the shopping cart begins, you can add items from the shop directly into the shopping cart with only one click. The shop works fine however it was noticed that it does not seem to have Google site map, this will greatly enhance and improve the site listing in Google and other search engines. Checkout at the site after purchases was fast and effective.

Proof in Usability ROI is Knowing What to Measure

There are two common reasons why many small business owners or site owners do not conduct usability tests on their websites. The first is the simple fact that they cost money. The second reason is that even if they are willing to spend the money, they are afraid it may not even be worth the money. Where is the proof that I will get a return on my investment (ROI)?

The Proof is Knowing What to Measure

Yes, you can measure usability, and it may be a lot more identifiable than you would expect. The most important ones are effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. Measuring the time and success rates are the obvious tools in judging a site, but you can also use the test subject’s feedback. A users satisfaction in the form of feedback may seem a bit vague in measuring, but after getting just a few a real interpretation of a site, it starts revealing itself on how most people see it. Having pre-designed questions with multiple choice type feedback can additionally give you real identifiable numbers as well.

Setting a Benchmark

After conducting a usability test, you now have a benchmark. You know what to expect when a visitor shows up to your site, you know the probability of success, and you know what the pitfalls are. When making changes to your site in the future you will now have an identifiable measuring stick to see whether those changes were good or bad. Having a personal benchmark for your site can also be beneficial, because you can compare those numbers with industry standards.

Making It Pay

So you have conducted the analysis, you have some numbers, how does it pay? It pays off in a number of ways:

• Changes in effectiveness can be compared to the current version – Will the change be more profitable?
• Stopping/bouncing effects to users are identified – Prevent visitors from leaving your site and reduce marketing costs
• Priority in future changes are identified – Don’t waste time and money working on fixes that users think are fine the way they are. Fix the obviously bad stuff first.
• Reduce time spent on customer service – They won’t email you as much if they understand right away.
• Reduce maintenance costs – A less confusing site to the users is typically easier to manage on the back end.

Assuming your site works, and depending on the budget, two big items on that list can really pay off for you. If you can identify some of the negative items that are bouncing your visitors this can drastically reduce your marketing costs, or at least make that marketing money a great deal more beneficial. Would you like 1 out of 100 making a sale or 4 our of 100? The second one is actually knowing what needs fixing first. Every aspect of a site could use some improvement, but knowing what is hurting the most can save you big money on site development fees. It’s the quickest way to decrease the bounce rate, and to improve user satisfaction.

UCD is short for User-centered Design, and is an important part of developing a website. Quickly defined, UCD is designing a website that meets users needs. Are you building a website for you to use, or your users? When building a website, you should design with your target audience in mind.

It’s Not a Waste of Time and Money

As a business owner myself, I’ve learned to not spend money on unnecessary items, but I have also learned that sometimes you need to have a bigger budget before implementing something new. “Can’t I just build a website without doing all this testing?” Yes, you can. Will your site be effective? It might. Will you need to rebuild your site when you realize that the current version is the problem? Most likely. Will you rebuild your site doing it the right way the second time? You better, or you are just setting yourself up to fail again.

It’s not a waste of time or money if you do it the right way the first time. It’s the best way you can spend your time and money. Before you jump into building a website though you need to clearly define its purpose, similar to setting up a business plan. In building a site, while thinking UCD, here is a list of important things to consider.

Important Factors:
·    Sites primary objective
·    Who is the target audience and their web user skills
·    Potential tasks and goals of the user
·    How would the users expect the site to work
·    How easy will your site be for users

All of these items should be considered, plus any other additional items that you can think of when developing the site concept. The key here is “Who is this user?” and “How will they use my site?” Designing the UCD way is understanding your audience, working/testing with audience, and creating the best platform for your audience to succeed.

Where Do I Start?

Assuming you have clearly defined the important factors for your new site, knowing where to start on the design process could be the hardest part. Usability.gov has a great little flow char on just that, Visual Overview. Not all steps are required, but it does offer some great insight on what should be happening when developing a site while thinking UCD.

It’s all about designing with users in mind, then testing with users, and then finalizing with a site that you know users can benefit from. It’s what building websites is all about.

Your site is fine you say. It is not hard to figure out how to use it you say. You designed it yourself, and you have been building sites for years. There are no known problems with the site. Here is something I will say; I bet your site is failing your visitors at least 50% of the time.

Understand the value, and learn the basic methodology of usability testing in this four-part post.
Understanding Usability Testing

I think most of us understand what usability testing. It is a simple test to see how easy it is to do something. Usability or usability testing is really more than that though. Usability is all about measurement of a user’s experience on different levels. It is about clearly understanding what is failing your users from completing their tasks, and knowing what the current level of effectiveness is. When you know how effective your task is, you can then know if future changes to your site were positive or not. You can also compare your current effectiveness to your markets known benchmarks. Many surprises come out of a usability test so be prepared to be amazed at what a difference it can make.

What does Usability Testing Measure?

Offline or online there are four key factors to measure when conducting a usability test. These are the items we can measure, and work to improve.

Items to Measure:
·    Ease of learning
·    Ability to memorize
·    Error Frequency
·    Satisfaction

Ease of learning is basically, how quickly does a user understand how to complete basic tasks on the site. The ability to memorize is calculating the user’s ability to remember a previous session. How much did they remember? Was it noticeably easier on the second visit because they remembered much of the method of site structure? Measuring the error frequency can detect the number of times errors are being made, and how serious the errors are. Measuring error frequency additionally finds how often they actually recover from the problem or user error. Satisfaction is a simple measurement made by user feedback on how much they like the site or task.

50% Failure and Why You Should Think UCD

So I first started this post saying that your site is most likely failing your users 50% of the time. It may not be true, but most likely, it is. Several tests have been conducted over the years, and the numbers point to failure. Some of the best sites have a success rate of just 42%. All of this means there is plenty of room for improvement, even for the best of us. I’ve personally conducted hundreds of usability tests on websites, and am amazed at how something as simple as making an order on an ecommerce site has failed. Words to live by when you own a website, “Test, test some more, then test the things you know that work.”
UCD is short for User-centered Design. UCD is designing a website based on user input throughout all the designing stages of building a site. In short, design using visitor action, not on visitor or designer thought. If your site is not easy to use, do you think visitors will come back? The second part of the four-part post will be all about UCD so stay tuned.

Usability testing is an essential part of building a website, and you don’t have to wait until you start a new site. Start testing your site today, even if it is five years old, even if it is doing great. Finding what is failing your visitors is not easy, but can make the difference between just another website, and a great website.

• Usability and Your Website was written for Temi Odurinde by Robert Campbell of Best Web Image
• You can discuss usability and other web development issue at Webmaster Forum UK