Site Testing is the Best Way to Ensure Your Website's Effectiveness

It can be very difficult to know exactly what is needed when you are designing a user interface.  When you are a web professional or just someone who is designing a website for their business or organization, it can be very challenging to know what sorts of things you should expect your users to be able to figure out and how much information is too much information.  This is what makes site testing such a useful tool.  For a reasonable amount of money and relatively small amount of personal effort, you can evaluate exactly what users who are visiting your site will see and experience when they try to complete a task.

The methodology for site testing is relatively straightforward.  When you have decided that you would like to purchase this valuable service, you simply load up your website information to the server of the web-based analytics site that you are using.  If you don't yet have a website that you can upload, you can use a prototype to simulate the sorts of activities and actions that users would go through.  From there you define a goal that you would want to have accomplished.  The next step is the option of selecting a number of tasks that could potentially be analyzed to examine user response and activity.  These questions can be single-choice, multiple-choice, yes or no, scaled or write-in answers.  After this is completed you will then move on to the next part of the process which is the selection of a demographic of testers.  You can opt to select your own testers or to pull testers from the site of the service that you are going to be using.  From there, the test begins and results are delivered to you almost immediately.

Upon receiving these results you will be able to see quite easily what is working on your website and what isn't. The information you gather from your website can make it very simple to go on to the web and troubleshoot any difficult issues that you have with your site.  By doing this work, you are ensuring that your website's visitors and users have an easy experience with your site, are able to find the information that they want and need and are able to use your site for its desired purpose. This is especially critical when you are working on a website devoted to sales, services or other commercial interests.  You will want to make sure immediately that your users are able to make purchases on your website, procure your services, gather information about you and just generally come away from the experience with a complete understanding of what it is that you do and what sets you apart from your competitors.  In general, there is nothing that you can do to increase your business or your website traffic flow if you are unable to figure out where the troubles with your site lie.

The most important thing that site testing offers is the ability to see your website through the eyes of a spectator, or an outsider or someone else who does not know the ins and outs of your business as well as you do. This is invaluable information.  It is very unlikely that someone will come to your website bringing the same amount of knowledge to the experience as the person who designed it.  By testing the site's usability, you are attempting to shift the focus of your site and redesign it for people who do not have the wealth of knowledge and the background that you have. In a sense, you are designing for a customer, not for yourself, and usability testing will make this far more effective.