How to Test Your Web Site UsabilityGet Web Design Tips and Tricks on mps-web-design.com. How to Test Your Web Site Usability topic will increase your understanding on Web Design Tips and Tricks. We at mps-web-design.com only provide news, articles, information in Web Design Tips and Tricks. Web Design Tips and Tricks at mps-web-design.com provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Copyright 2002 by Herman Drost When designing a web site, you are never sure how it appears to all people. This is because people use different browsers, resolutions, computers and connection speeds to the Internet. Your site may look good with your browser, but absolutely horrendous in other browsers. This is why you should test the usability of your site, before you expose it to the world. What is usability testing? This indicates the ease with which folks can use your web site. Let’s look at a few usability factors. Who is winning the browser war? Here are the browser statistics: 39% Internet Explorer 6.0 51% Internet Explorer 5.0 2% Internet Explorer 4.0 3% Netscape 4.0 A few years ago Netscape was the dominant browser, however Internet Explorer now has 80% of the market. With the introduction of Netscape 6.0 and 7.0 (their latest release), this may eat a little into IE’s market. The latest browsers support the latest designing technologies, such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS1, CSS2) and XML. Installing different browsers Test your web site in different browsers, so your web site can be seen by as many people as possible. Internet Explorer Download Internet Explorer 5 and 6. The way to do this is to either have each one installed on a different computer, or to have 2 operating systems on your computer. You can do this with partition magic. Trying to install IE 5 & 6 on the same operating sysytem doesn't work. One overrides the other. Netscape Download NN 4.79 and 6.2. You can install them on the same operating system as Internet Explorer. Other browsers The Opera browser This is often known as the “third browser” after Internet Explorer and Netscape. It has received international recognition for being faster, smaller and more standards compliant than other browsers. Kmeleon This is a simple, efficient, fast browser that loads very quickly. This is because it is an unbloated browser. If your web site looks good in this browser, it will look fine in Netscape. Test for different resolutions. Just because your site looks great with your computer set to a resolution of 800x600, it doesn’t mean it will look good at a 1024x768 resolution. Often your web site may be hard to read or aligned to the left or right of the screen. Here are the statistics: 1024 x 768 resolution 44% 800 x 600 resolution 50% 640 x 480 resolution 3% To test your web site in different resolutions, go to start – settings – control panel – display – settings – slide the pointer to the resolution you want. Test for connectivity speeds. You may be proud of your fast DSL, satellite or cable connection to the Internet, however still most Internet Users still connect via the modem. Connectivity speed, determines how fast your site will load. If it contains many graphics, which have not been optimized for the Web, you may rapidly lose the patience of your visitors. They will click elsewhere. Sources Web Browser Statistics, resolutions, and operating systems. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://webdesign.about.com/cs/statistics http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm http://www.webreference.com/stats/browser.html - daily summary of browser statistics. http://www.anybrowser.com - tests your site in different browsers (not always reliable). Browser Downloads Internet Explorer:http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie Netscape:http://home.netscape.com Opera: http://www.opera.com Kmeleon:http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net Checking your web site’s usability can generate more traffic to your site. It may take you a little extra time and patience, but you can be assured you are reaching and pleasing a wider audience.
I love wireframing by hand especially when working collaboratively with the client. When you work on a computer only one person can wireframe at a time, but with pen and paper we can all wireframe together. The problem is that pen and paper wireframing takes a lot of redrawing. You find yourself constantly drawing and [...] Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 |
More Articles:1. Choosing A Color Scheme When you begin the design of your Web site, one of the first things you need to do is decide on a color scheme. Although choosing colors seems like a relatively easy proposition, it's not easy at all. In fact, it's hard.One of the pluses we have as Web designers is that millions of colors are at our disposal. Unlike the print world, we do not have to pay for each color we use. If we want to use a specific hue of yellow, for example, all we need to know is the hexadecimal code for that particular… 2. Custom Icons For Your Specific Brand By Juan Pablo Sarmiento Developing a software application is not easy at all; apart from the effective creation of the application you’ll have to think of other things as well, like: making the software easy to work with, giving it a unique and appealing look, making it better than other software, etc. Apart from the qualities of the application, these little things are the ones that promote your software application among the end users. If the application is easy to use, has a friendly user interface, the look of th… 3. Establishing your Internet Presence IntroductionThis article shows you what is involved to get your own website up and running. This information can help you with preparing the requirements for your website. Having well defined requirements will result in a better website while making it easier for both you and the web designer to whom you outsourced your project.Outsourcing your web development projectYou are planning on outsourcing your web development project, right? A mistake commonly made by small businesses is to think that… 4. "The Spider Is Waiting To Get You...But, Are You Ready?" Here is my latest article. It may be freely used in ezines, on websites or in e-books, as long as the Resource Box is left intact.I would appreciate notification of where it was used, and if possible, a copy of the ezine or newsletter that it was used in. Please send notification mailto:webmaster@online-wealth.com ____________________As more and more businesses come online, the fight to get on page one of search results obviously gets more competitive.In another article, I talked about the need … |
||||
