So your new website looks great, you’re happy with the content and photos and all your staff have looked through and given their ok.
You would probably think at this point that you are ready to go live but actually, the most important step is still to come…website usability testing.
What is Website Usability Testing?
Can your website visitors figure out what your website is about and use it to find and buy/enquire about a product they need quickly and easily.
You’ll be amazed at what you discover watching a potential customer navigating through your website. Menus and sections you thought were obvious, are completely misread or missed. Visitors look immediately for a search box, which doesn’t exist or mobile visitors spend ages searching for your phone number and then give up.
Who Should Test Your Website?
To test usability, you need people who are not on your staff and don’t already know your products/services inside out like you do.
Your testers could be people interested in your product or just an average person off the street. You will however get more useful test results if your testers fit your potential customers profile.
Eg. if your target market is men, then you should probably ask men to do your usability testing, rather than women who may not use the same terminology or background knowledge of your product.
You could use testers with a range of technology experience to see whether even a person who doesn’t spend a lot of time online, can navigate through your website.
How Does Usability Testing Work?
When we test usability on new websites we’ve created before they go live, we find suitable testers, then give them a couple of tasks to complete on the new website.
What is the website about – firstly we give testers a short time to look through the site and then tell us what the site is about, what they are selling or promoting.- Find or buy something specific – Depending on the type of website, we give testers a product which they need to find, answer questions about and finally buy or make an enquiry about.
In most cases, we watch the testers as they navigate through the website to complete their task. We can see what they click on and when they hesitate. If appropriate, we can interrupt and ask why they clicked on a particular link/image or button.
At no point would we try and explain to them where they should be clicking as if this needs to be explained then there is obviously something important not working.
How Usability Testing Helps Your Business
Website usability testing can highlight potential website issues which are not obvious to you, as owner or project manager.
- The terminology you use might be perfect for an expert but totally unknown to a layperson.
- Depending on the technology level of the majority of your users, you might need to add additional instructions, make links more obvious or add better visual cues.
- You might have left off important information such as locations, calls to action, email forms, photos, dimensions and more.
- E-Commerce websites – Multiple product photos, customer reviews, colours and dimensions, sizing etc are just some of the essentials without which customers wont purchase from an online shop
If the changes you make based on the user feedback help your website visitors to make a decision about purchasing or enquiring about your product, then this feedback is invaluable.
Improve Your Website Usability Now
If you already have a website and are concerned about usability, we can do a website usability review on your website. We’ll report back to you on changes which will make your website easier to use and therefore convert more visitors into customers.
About Jo Lees
"We have had massive increases in both customer contact for repeat services and online sales, we are 200% happy with the results :)” - Cheryl Smith, 