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Video Summary
One of the reasons business websites are ineffective is that they are unusable or difficult to use… In other words, visitors to the site cannot easily complete the tasks that would be of greatest benefit to them and to your business.
Here’s the interesting thing… Neither you, nor your website development team, are qualified to tell you if your site is usable or not! Website usability testing should help you find out how easy your website is to use.
So how do you test your site to see if it is really usable? Watch this video to find out.
Video Transcript
Do you have to be Einstein in order to use your website?
How usable is it really? I don’t mean for you and those who are already familiar with your site. I mean how usable is it for those who arrive at your site for their first experience?
One of the reasons business websites are ineffective is that they are unusable or difficult to use… In other words, visitors to the site cannot easily complete the tasks that would be of greatest benefit to them and to your business.
Here’s the interesting thing… Neither you, nor your website development team, are qualified to tell you if your site is usable or not! I’m not saying that you don’t know what you’re doing. Quite the opposite really. You and your web developer are over-qualified because you are all biased.
The website developer created it, so they know how it works. And, either you told them how you wanted it to work, and they did what you said, or they showed you how it works because they don’t want you to struggle with your own site. Because if you struggle, they’ll look bad.
How Do You Test Your Site to See if it is Really Usable?
The first thing to do is decide what types of actions you want people to take on your site. Consider the site you have. What are the end goals you want your visitors to accomplish? These might be things like discovering the answer to their particular question, or opting-in to your mailing list, or ordering your newest product.
Make a list of the things you would like people to successfully do on your site. Ideally, when they do these things there is a benefit for your business. See if you can come up with 5 different tasks. Then it’s time to do some usability testing!
What is Website Usability Testing?
Basically, it’s a method of testing the functionality of your website by recruiting real users and observing them as they complete tasks while using your site. Doing this should help you find out how easy your website is to use. Of course, the testers should be people who are not already familiar with your site.
The goal of usability testing is to discover areas of improvement and resolve problems that may arise during each session. This will ultimately boost the overall user experience.
Allowing real-life users to test your website makes it possible for them to reveal issues that website owners and developers can no longer identify and find. Some of these issues may include website bugs, or your target audience getting lost and confused in your website, or users not being able to complete desired actions because of other problems.
If your website is not usable, then confused users will immediately hit the back button and move on to another website. And you don’t want that, do you?
What are the Benefits of Website Usability Testing?
Your site visitors need specific products and services to solve their problems, and they dedicate some of their time to exploring your website to see if your business can solve their problem.
If your website fails to make it easy for them, then they will turn to another website for the answers. When this happens, you lose potential customers and revenue.
Whenever most businesses create a website, they often test it on their own. If everything looks good, they go live and assume everything will work fine for others as well. But that’s not always the case.
This is why website usability testing is important. It helps ensure that everything is working and is easy to use. Usability also affects your brand’s reputation. If your website is not perceived as usable, this negatively affects your image.
How Do You Pick Usability Testers?
In choosing good candidates, you can consider friends or family members. These may be the easiest to enlist. You can also find random users. Either way, make sure you choose people who do not know your website. Otherwise, they will not properly represent your target audience.
You can also employ testers in different time zones depending on your business needs. You can evaluate their experience using video conferencing. Remote usability testing is great for evaluating different user environments all around the world. This is especially great if your target audience is global.
What do the testers do? Well to begin, you should work with each tester one-on-one. Explain what you want them to do and give them a list of tasks to complete. When they look at your website and try to figure out how to do each of these tasks, ask them to talk out loud, expressing what they’re thinking as they go along.
As they test, what should you do? Watching users perform these tasks on your website is a great way to see if your website is really working. You get to see what happens, clearly, and in real time.
If they have any difficulties along the way, you’ll know it. For best results you should watch them complete each task. Try to understand their thought process. You certainly want to observe if they encounter any problems.
To track all these things, you can take copious notes. Or, set up screen recording software with a microphone to record the video and the spoken audio. In the latter case you can still take notes, but you only have to be concerned with your own thoughts rather than everything the tester is saying and doing.
After Website Usability Testing
When the website usability test is concluded, compile all the information. Take your notes and any recordings and share all that with others on your team. Jot down any issues that users have in common, and look for ways to improve these.
Also check the time it took for them to finish the tasks. Is that within your target range? Whether it’s a yes or a no, still think of ways you can make the process faster. If anything isn’t clear about the testing, you can reach out to the users to clarify any confusion you may have. Then decide what types of changes will help overcome any obstacles the testers experienced.
After making changes, run the tests again, with new testers, to make sure you properly implemented the desired improvements. Not only will this step ensure the changes have been implemented, it will also help you discover any new issues that may arise.
Upon making these changes, your site will be more usable. And that means it will be more used, with people taking the actions you want them to take.
Overall
Website usability testing is a great way to get to know if your website is usable and whether it’s working properly or not. It’s also a great way to know your user’s perspective and collect feedback to help you improve your overall experience.
If you would like to go deeper on this topic, take a look at the book by Steve Krug called “Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited”. You are welcome to share your experience in the comments, if you have already done some usability testing.
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Your business deserves to be found online, and I will help you get there. Thanks for watching and have a great day!
