Easy Web Usability Testing

Usability is usually the last thing you want to think about when you're just finishing up a big web design or multimedia project. But as TechSoup Blog points out, usability testing need not be a daunting, time-consuming process. OJR (Online Journalism Review) gives a comprehensive, yet simple step-by-step guide to conducting usability testing in just five hours of time from start to finish. Their outline makes the process of usability testing seem a lot more manageable. Yet most importantly, the guide emphasizes the importance of good usability testing in making your site design a great one that easily gets your users the information they need.

Have you conducted usability testing for your organization's Website or multimedia project? Did you find it helped with the overall web or project design?

--Megan

This is a great, very concise summary for usability testing. Though it feels like only people who have at least some experience in the area would make the most effective use applying this process.
In my experience doing even basic quick-and-dirty things like showing your website to uninitiated people and asking them to do stuff / find info will get your a lot of insight very quickly.

My intranet started at about 30 pages. At the inception, usability was definately a consideration. Now, three years later, at over 14,000 pages, usability has been dictated by need rather than by design.

When building a site of any size, always take future growth into consideration. Your site design might work great with 25 pages of content, but what happens when the site takes off and grows to thousands?

Perhaps a good place to start is with the navigation structure. Sure, your chosen design might look pretty with a dozen links on it, but what does it look like with 50? With 100?

When you take on a project such as this, go to as many websites as you can within the industry you are designing for. I recommend the industry you are designing for merely because it will be easier for you to predict which sections of the site are likely to be high traffic vs. low traffic, etc.

What makes those sites work?

What makes them frustrating?

What would you do differently?

In a nutshell, perform usability testing on the competition's site, in order to make appropriate design choices within yours.

It's really interesting to see that you can catch 80% of the problems with 5 testers. We did some simple usability tests when our site went up, and my experience too was that you can catch some big errors quite quickly. (If you can, as the article mentions, 'check your ego' at the door).

Also interesting to note tclaremonts comments on how the growth of a site will affect usability. I like these suggestions, just for site design. On the other hand, I am not sure if it is really possible to plan for the usability of a 14,000 page site when what you start with is just 30 pages,

I think it is realistic to expect to have to revisit the issue periodically or after periods of dramatic change... like having to do dishes after the party.

Best wishes,

Not only is it possible, but it is quite simple.

One of the things that made life easier for me was assigning as many variables as I can.

For example, the background color is set as a variable. When our organization merges with a sister organization next year, I will simply make one change to that variable, and all of my pages will reflect that new color.

I did the same with the name of the organization. I just change the name of the org in my config file and all of my pages and reports will reflect the name change. Can you imagine what a hassle this would be with 50, let alone 14,000 pages?

The process is the same when you anticipate thousands of pages vs when you anticipate 100. The common problem is that amateur developers usually design a page at a time.

My point was to design a SITE, not just a bunch of individual pages. The paradigm shift in thinking will make your maintenance easier by an order of magnitude!

Usability.

If my mother can get around the site without getting too frustrated, then it's good. :-) Also, the 6th grader down the street is a great resource!

Answer these questions:

- Where am I or what is this site?
- Where is it or where a can I search for it?
- Where are the main areas of this site?
- What page am I on (breadcrumbs)?
- How do I get home if I feel overwhelmed and need to start over?

Referrence
Don't Make Me Think

hth,

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