Value Added Web Usability Test for Website Performance

Posted by usabilitysciences on September 16th, 2014

Web usability testing mainly aims to evaluate the performance of a specific website or an application against a carefully formulated set of criteria in order to identify problems. This step is essential to developing or creating websites and applications designed to meet the needs of intended users and to perform as expected. Even with just a small number of users in the sample, usability research can help unearth major issues not only about a site's usability, but also the overall quality of the system being tested. Usability testing also provides invaluable insight into the behavior of users towards the product.

When recruiting a research group or a usability testing service to conduct usability research for your company, choose one that follows ethical principles and has an understanding of the best practices used in conducting these kinds of studies. This way, you can rest assured that the results you will be getting were generated through ethical means. Choose a company that uses advanced strategies and has access to the proper demographic that you are targeting to get the most accurate data and results that will help you create a website or application that satisfies the needs of your target users.

The rule of thumb when producing and developing new websites is to test early and test often. While this may involve a good deal of your organization's time and resources, the return is larger in the long term if you are able to produce a website or application that does its job excellently.

You generally have 2 choices when it comes to usability testing, namely in-person lab testing and remote testing. Both of these web usability testing methodologies have their own pros and cons, depending on the kind of data you are looking for. In-person lab testing allows you the ability to observe users physically and see how they interact with your website in-person. This generates compelling evidences such as video recordings of the test duration, which can help support recommendations, especially when you have to present adjustments to the higher authorities before implementing changes. Remote testing on the other hand, offers a huge deal of time and cost savings, and allows you to reach wide-spread audiences, including those who might be impossible to reach due to geographical restrictions. Thanks to its scalability, remote testing is perfect for testing large and largely informational websites.

About The Author:

The article has been written by Ben Bishop, the Marketing Manager at Usability Sciences. Usability Sciences offers various Usability Testing services like – Website Usability Testing, Mobile Usability Testing, Website Design, Testing, Remote Usability Testing, and Rapid Iterative Testing. They also offer Eye tracking, Web Usability, Card Sorting and Intercept Survey services to improve your web experience. Besides these they also take a keen interest in various online research and competitive usability research study and analysis.