Usability Testing

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Is your website usable?

That might sound like a strange question. Sure, you might say, it’s usable! You can type the address for it in a browser, and it comes up, and you can click on things and go to different pages!

By some bare minimum standard, the site is usable. But you don’t accept the bare minimum standard anywhere else in your business, do you? And is the bare minimum what your customers expect? Will it make you stand out from your competitors?

Why Website Usability is Important

Usability testing is how web designers refine the UX/UI of a site to elevate it beyond minimally functional and make using it easy and even fun.

Let’s go back to fundamental principles: generally speaking, whatever your product is, you want to make it as easy for your customers to buy as possible.

A site may be “usable,” but that doesn’t mean it’s user-friendly. The difference between a user-friendly site and one that’s just “usable” is an intuitive experience that leaves visitors impressed with your business and more likely to buy and a frustrating, confusing experience that drives them away. Usability testing is how you get one and avoid ending up with the other.

Why Usability Testing is Needed

But do you really need to test your site to find out if it’s usable? After all, the design of your site may seem totally intuitive… to you.

However, you have to consider that you’re viewing the site with the benefit of all of your knowledge about your business. A good website needs to be usable by someone coming in “blind,” without prior knowledge of your products and services.

As an illustration, think about a grocery store. An employee at the store probably knows right what aisle and shelf to head for if they want to buy a loaf of bread. A person who has never been to the store, though, will have to hope there’s clear signage to tell them where to go so they don’t waste their time wandering from one aisle to the next.

Usability testing is all about seeing how easily customers can figure out where the “bread” is. It gives you the chance to get potential customers’ perspective on the design of your website.

Now you can start to see why responsive design is a big deal!

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How is Usability Testing Done?

There are various approaches to website usability testing. Which ones are utilized depends on the functionality of the site and the aspect of usability being tested.

Often, the test users are given specific “tasks” to perform like “Find product X and add it your online shopping cart.” The usability of the site can be assed from a qualitative standpoint, which is based on how the user feels about the experience of using the site, or a quantitive approach, which measures things like how long it takes a user to perform a specific “task.”

Another powerful tool for usability testing is eye-tracking “heat maps.” Users view the site and specialized webcam software tracks where on the screen they look and how long their gaze settles in various places. These heat maps allow web designers to determine whether users are naturally drawn to look at the “right” parts of the site, or whether they’re looking around aimlessly because they aren’t sure where important information is or how to navigate the site.

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Elements of Usability

Different types of usability testing reveal information about different aspects of usability. Website usability is often broken down into five areas:

Learnability

Learnability assesses how quickly users can grasp how to perform basic tasks on the site when they arrive at it “blind,” with no prior information or guidance.

Efficiency

Efficiency assesses how quickly and easily users can perform tasks once they’ve learned the design.

Memorability

Memorability asks whether users remember how to use the site if they come back to it after a period time, or whether they need to re-learn.

Errors

If users make a mistake in using the site, how big of a problem does it cause, and how easily can they get back on track?

Satisfaction

Overall, how enjoyable and smooth is the experience of using the site?

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Road-Tested Websites with Greenlight

Nobody has a user-unfriendly website on purpose. They either don’t realize the site has problems, or they don’t have the expertise or resources to fix it. But if the UX/UI of your website is standing between you and sales, you don’t afford not to fix it.

When you choose Greenlight Marketing to build or redesign your brand’s website, you can be confident that you’re picking a team with advanced UX/UI expertise who put every site we work on to the test to make sure that it not only functions, but is a pleasure to use for your customers. Contact us today and let’s start planning your web design project.