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For websites, though, things just aren't done this way. Many websites are always under development, and have typically only been tested by the person who designed them, and perhaps a random friend or two. Not only are bugs and problems not fixed, but most of them are never even found. What I'm telling you, though, is that websites aren't immune from user testing: in fact, they can give you the advantage you need out there. Finding Problems Let's say there was a problem with your site that was stopping many people from looking at one section of it. You get by fine, because you designed it, but to everyone else it's just not obvious at all. How would you know about this problem? You might just assume that the section is less popular than the rest - maybe you'd even remove it or rework it, not realising that the problem lay in a simple layout mistake you'd made. When you test, you're testing for two things: firstly, outright bugs (things that are broken), and secondly, usability issues. The first are easy to catch on your own, but the second are considerably more difficult. Having designed your website, you're unlikely to be able to see it the way a first-time visitor would: just because you know that clicking an article author's name sends them an email doesn't mean that anyone else is expecting it. User Testing on a Budget The chances are that you're not a big company that can afford to pay lots of people to test your site for hours on end. What you have to rely on, then, is pretty much your family and friends. If you do it right, though, they can be the best testers of all. First of all, you have to sit with them while they use the site, but make it clear that you can't say anything at all - sitting next to them explaining how things work obviously defeats the point, as your other visitors won't have you there, will they? You've got to make sure that their interaction is entirely limited to using the site as a normal visitor would. The best thing to do is write them a list of common tasks that you'd expect users of your site to want to do - for example, if you're running a webmail site, you could ask people to log in, send an email and copy it to your address. You should observe how they interact with the site, and especially note anything they have trouble with or do wrongly. Reacting to User Tests Once you've watched someone try to accomplish things on your site, there's one key question you should ask them: 'how would you expect to have done that thing?' Make a note of people's responses - if even two or three people say the same thing, you really ought to do it that way. Consistency is one of the most important aspects of web design: if you want your site to be easy to use, then you have to stick to what visitors expect, not try to show them how it can be done better. Split Testing A powerful way of testing whether changes to your site improve it or make it worse is to do split testing. Split testing is when you create two subtly different versions of your site and test each one with an equal number of people. You then gauge their reactions to see which design worked better. It can be surprising just how effective this technique is: the most subtle of changes can make a big difference. Feedback Forms
Finally, you have to remember that your site's testing doesn't end when it goes live. Every visitor to your site is, effectively, testing it for you. Make sure you offer them every opportunity to leave feedback, letting you know if they ran into any issues or found anything hard to find or use.
Lets face it, when a visitor does arrive it only follows that we should do our best to help them see the value in our website, no? Welcome new visitor, here is our feed, blah blah... Can't we do better then that?I see a lot of variations on the Welcome new visitor, here is our feed type of thing when I arrive at blogs and such these days. Sometimes this gets customized if the site determines that I am a "Googler" (visiting from a search engine) and then offers me some piece of text to try and make me become a passionate user of their site. This strategy never makes me a passionate user. What does work is when I read the page in question and then navigate around the site and find more great content. So the trick should be to make great-content discovery the goal. Welcome Googler, let us help you outHere we present one solution that works for helping people discover your site. As a side effect it will increase your pageviews in a proper, natural way. (We have a whole pile of other solutions for this, however that
What we have done is created a custom, on-the-fly navigation system based on their search query! This little widget should work to keep them poking around your site. Placement etc.We've been using this on several sites now (along with some other ideas alluded to above) and it works. Pageviews per user go up. Bounce rate falls (more on that in the future too). We have had to play with the placement of this box: top of the page? Floated to the right/left of the main page content? Following them down the page (with js)? As they say, your mileage may vary, but chances are you will get more mileage out of more readers, and that is a good sticky thing. 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. Opinion - Search Engine Success This article is actually the summary to a book soon to be released by the author, titled “Guaranteed Website Success”. Opinions are quite often controversial. Such is the nature of this one.There a many opinions and conclusions being expressed by so called “experts” at this time. We can’t turn a blind eye to all this information but nothing will replace our own logic and powers of observation. I would like to take a minute to summarize and express my own observations. Some will obviously disagre… 2. 11 Steps to "Sticky" Web Site! By Collette Gillian An attractive and user-friendly Web site is crucial to attracting prospects and holding their interest. Seems obvious, yet poor design and even more poorly written content clutter the Web.The basics of a good web site are simple. Generally, if the purpose of your web site is to convey information, the emphasis should be on clear navigation and engaging text. If however, your purpose is to showcase a portfolio or develop a brand identity, then it will be more appropriate to limit the amoun… 3. Do Not Drop Your Web Site Off the Search Engine Cliff If you've been feeling like Tom Cruise climbing up the side of some remote jagged mountain in the blazing hot sun and concerned you're facing 'mission impossible', chances are you own a web site.Adding to the intense thrill of web site ownership are keyword comparisons and bidding for good keyword positions in search engines. You might hire a search engine optimization specialist who can track elusive algorithm clues and is unfazed by page rank drama. Your programmers and designers insist they g… 4. Is a picture really worth a thousand words? The great debate: how much copy you should have on your site, particularly on the home page?Do you subscribe to the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words--and therefore images, not a lot of text, should be the main thrust of your home page? Or do words have more power to capture a visitor's attention and compel them to buy--meaning you should aim for powerful copy?As a graphic designer, my natural inclination is to create graphically-rich, light text websites. Since I'm focused on what a… |
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