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

Filed under: Category Usability | Tags: usability and your site,user friendly by admin