How To Conduct Cheaper Usability Tests

The biggest challenge of web designing is to create a website that is attractive and easy to use

. It should be easily navigable both by its target audience and also by its non-core visitors who comes to the site for curiosity. For any website design Sydney Company, success can be measured by the consistent creation of usable websites.

For a web designer working in a web design Sydney Company, usability testing of a website is compulsory before making the product live. Usability testing is generally an expensive affair- but with a little pragmatism, it is possible to lower the cost to manageable levels. Costs can be reduced by a tenth if you judiciously follow certain practices.

For a Sydney web Design Company, all it requires is five users, a home computer, a camcorder equipped with a tripod, a stopwatch, a certain amount of money (approximately $300) and a few hours of work time. The location of the usability test can be the office. The test can be supervised by you- the owner or website administrator. Tests can be scheduled at any time of the day. The preparation of tests consists of a list of questions and tasks.

The rationale of five users can be explained by the fact that a minimum of five individuals is enough to unearth maximum usability problems. The trick is not to use colleagues or any other person who has worked to develop or create the site as subjects for testing. They should not be co-opted to reduce or negate their bias towards the website's design and technology. Other intruding factors may include the desire to please the website owner or the administrator. But, it must be said that it is acceptable as well as economical to employ colleagues to administer the usability tests to make sure that there are no problems with the test plan.

Test subjects should be chosen with care. They should ideally be a lay person with basic computer literacy. Subjects chosen for the test should know how to browse the internet. Ideally, the individuals chosen should belong to the same demographic as the target audience. But, it must be said that, in such cases, expenses relating the usability tests can rise considerably. In case, your website is targeting specialized audiences like teenagers, then the tests subjects should also be teenagers. This trend is also applicable for niche groups like fitness enthusiasts, and then there should be some among the test subjects too. If the website is targeted at professionals like doctors and architects, then the subjects chosen for the usability tests should also be in the same profession.

For such web designing usability tests, there is no fixed location to conduct them. Tests can also be conducted at home. If possible, such tests can be conducted at the offices of the customer. The upshot of this is that users can be observed in the context of their work environment. This is much more desirable than a sterile, sanitized environment that can be uncomfortable to the test subjects.

by: Aaron Hunter

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