Website Usability and Testing

An important aspect of creating the customer experience is website usability. Website usability testing is important because it provides designers and businesses with valuable information about whether or not customer’s needs are being met on the website. The word usability has five quality components attached to its meaning. First there is learnability and this tells us how easy it is for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they see the site. Website efficiency would help us learn how fast consumers can accomplish tasks once they know the design and memorability which helps show when users return to the site after some time has passes how easy they can pick up the design again. Errors tell us how many errors users make, how severe they are, and how easily can they recover from them. Lastly there is satisfaction and this shows us how pleasant it is for users to use the site. One other good function is utility and this element would show us if the website is doing what the user needs it to do. By focusing on all of these components an easy to use interface design can be created.

Usability of a website is important based on 3 different aspects. An effective website will allow consumers to achieve goals, have a high conversion rate, meet business objectives, and also deliver a positive brand image. An efficient website provides answers quickly to consumers, will follow a logical sequence, doesn’t waste resources, and requires less management time. A satisfied user achieves their goals, enjoys their experience, tells others, and comes back again. Having usability testing will help in first telling you where these aspects are not effective and secondly help with improving those areas.

Website usability testing can be a vital tool in creating a website that creates an enjoyable experience to users. Appropriate times for usability testing are the web site’s conception, before planning a redevelopment, repeatedly during redevelopment, and when traffic analysis shows an anomaly. When doing usability testing it is essential to know what you hope to discover and also you want to find out if the user gets the point of the page, understands the navigation system, and can guess where to find things. When conducting usability testing it should be shorter then 5 minutes or longer than an hour. The participants for testing should not be involved with the website in any way, be completely new to the site (don’t ask the same person twice), and somewhat familiar with the web in general. Ideally usability testing should be done in the home of participants or at their workplace because the atmosphere is more relaxed and it also gives you a chance to see how the website works on multiple computers, browsers, and modems.