How Usable is YOUR Site?

[Andy]

A couple of current threads (G Engage & Tick Off your visitors) got me to thinkin' (always dangerous)...

How usable is your site?

Are you ticking off YOUR visitors?

Are they getting out of it what you want them too?

Have you ever considered doing a usability study?

Why or Why not? If you have what were the results?

Andy

[benitez17]

I'm in the process of redesigning one of my main sites with the help of a marketing and advertising firm, and that's one aspect we are currently discussing. The plan is to do some customer surveys once the redesign is complete and users begin to transfer over to the new version to see what changes have to be made before the new site is fully live.

If I get any meaningful feedback, I'll share it here.

[circa75]

Nice thread Andy. Usability and Accessibility is vital in my view, and something given way too little attention by a lot of site owners (myself included). And perhaps especially in the whole making money online niches – where frankly, a lot of owners are interested in one thing (income) and cannot be bothered with investment of time/effort/capital into building a better experience for the customer/user.

Though personally, that's where I see the opportunities.

As suggested in a thread to Kay (which I can't find now), Usability consultations and surveys with your customers/visitors/browsers etc are a great way of drawing valuable data from the horses mouth, so to speak. User opinions are fascinating. I've worked on a number of big e-com site reviews over the years, consulting and getting down to the nitty gritty of the user experience: what they think currently, what changes/updates/tweaks they'd like to see, their opinions on very specific details. But not getting too tech so to confuse or alienate people.

More often than not, small incremental changes are better than huge site-wide updates (if the differences are significant).

As people making money on the interweb, we often hang too much importance on how Goog etc index/rank our sites. But the web is about people, so if you own a site of genuine worth/value – it's vital to get feedback from your visitors on usability/accessibility/functionality etc. It can only strengthen and reinforce your position, from a visitor perspective.

Aside: interesting article on Web Accessibility In The Real World.

[Andy]

If you'd like to read a great book on this subject - check out Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug As far as I'm concerned, the experience of the visitor is a priority - with a view of also maximizing the intent of the page.

Andy

[BillyParadise]

I loaned that book to a former boss - it was an excellent if short read. Unfortunately, I don't think he read it, as his site still attempts to geolocate me, fails horribly, yet doesn't let me save a cookie for next time. I drop by for a chuckle now and then.

[JJMcClure]

As a website designer Usabality is on my mind every time I build a site, it has a huge influence on the design. The site has a job to do and if it isn't easy to use then it fails. The Steve Krug book is good and I've read a couple of others on the subject Prioritizing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger and Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm

Funnily enough, this was in my igoogle feed this morning -Interaction Design Tactics For Visual Designers it doesn't use the word Usability but that's what it's about.

a lot of owners are interested in one thing (income) and cannot be bothered with investment of time/effort/capital into building a better experience for the customer/user.

That makes no sense, the income comes from the site doing it's job which it won't if it has poor Usability.

This is a site I designed - http://3dsm.ltd.uk/, the home page is a conversion path designed to get visitors to contact them, simple dimple.