Usability Testing Tools for Website
A number of factors need to be considered when you're planning to build a business website. Great
user experience
is what motivates customers to visit your site again. First, content
wise, it should be useful and valuable to the targeted audience. Make
sure that the important details about your business such as product
range, prices, operating hours, and contacts are included. Second, it
should have a pleasant interface. While every business website may vary
in design style, which depends heavily on the brand image and vibe
itself, some principles are universal. For example, consistency in page
layout and navigation, use of white space, clear and legible typography,
and many others.
While ensuring that your website content and interface are well done,
one thing that shouldn’t be forgotten is its overall usability. It
refers to how users can accomplish what they aim to do by visiting your
website, which can be to obtain certain information, make a transaction,
or give feedback. Good usability will result in customers satisfaction
and lead to their using the website in the future. To check the
performance of your website,
usability testing
can be done. Traditionally, methods such as interview, focus group, and
A/B testing are used. If you didn’t have the time and resource to
conduct the face-to-face testing, then usability testing tools can be a
viable alternative. These tools can be easily found online, and each of them
has different functions to suit your needs.
Usability Errors Usually Encountered
By making use various usability testing methods, web designer and
developer could gain a more complete perspective of the users’ needs and
motivations. However, even after identifying the rooms for improvement,
some usability issues probably still left ignored. Here is a list of the
common problems:
Compatibility: The customers may access your website from different
browsers, so you will want to make sure that it runs well on the common
browsers such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox.
Another type of compatibility is across devices. Sometimes people open a
website from their mobile phone, thus it will be beneficial to have a
mobile-friendly website.
Confusing process: As much as possible, make things easy for the
customers. For example, asking user to create an account just to do
simple stuff might be unnecessary. Another thing that should be avoided
is complicated step to complete an action. For example, the checkout
process in online retail website should be simple and only ask for the
necessary user data.
Broken links: The existence of broken links can immediately leave a
bad impression. When users click on certain link, they already have an
expectation of what is gonna come up. Letting them down will cost a lot, as frustrated users are unlikely to come back.