Increase
effectiveness of your website by usability study
A PERFECT DESIGN SATISFIES USER NEEDS.
Usability testing puts your site in front of your customers and gives
you the opportunity to watch how they navigate and use it.
Usability assessment can reveal problems in the design, navigation,
layout, or labeling that prevent users from finding what they need
quickly. It will provide information on how your users actually interact
with your site (rather than how you think they interact with it). Repeated
testing can enhance that knowledge.
Usability can be defined as the degree to which a given piece of
software assists the person sitting at the keyboard to accomplish a task,
as opposed to becoming an additional impediment to such accomplishment.
The broad goal of usable systems is often assessed using several criteria:
· Ease of learning
· Retention of learning over time
· Speed of task completion
· Error rate
· Subjective user satisfaction
Potential cost savings can be realized through usability engineering
The purpose of most Web sites is to attract users and distribute
information or products. Losing users because of a poor design could be
catastrophic for a commercial venture. Even in the absence of direct
monetary considerations, an organization may find the cost of user support
-- such as calls or e-mail to a help desk -- is directly related to a
site's ease of use.
There are three main styles of testing. Exploratory testing examines a
system and looks for areas of user confusion, slow-down, or mistakes. Such
testing is performed with no particular preconceived notions about where
the problems lie or what form they may take. The deliverable for an
exploratory test is a list of problem areas for further examination:
"users were visibly confused when faced with page x; only half the
users were able to complete task y; task z takes longer than
it should." Exploratory testing can be used at any point in the
development life cycle, but is most effective when implemented early and
often.
Threshold testing measures the performance characteristics of a system
against predetermined goals. This is a pass/fail effort: "with this system
users were able to complete task x in y seconds, making an
average of z mistakes. This does (does not) meet the release
criteria." Threshold testing typically accompanies a beta release.
Finally, comparison testing measures the usability characteristics of
two approaches or designs to determine which better suits users' needs.
This is usually done at the early prototyping stage.
Usability testing can be performed with developers, HCI experts, or
representative end users. A-1 Technology may assist you is usability
assessment of your website.
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