How usable is your website? Do your visitors find what they need? What kind of experience do they have? Will they come back again? You can answer these questions by carrying out user testing on your site.

User testing involves getting together some members of your target audience and asking them to carry out tasks on your website whilst you observe. By watching how they get on, and listening to what they say, this will give you valuable insights as to how you can improve your site.

Deciding What to Test

Firstly you need to decide what it is you are going to test. To keep it simple you should focus on key areas of your website where you anticipate problems or any complicated processes.

Example: homepage, the navigation, the sign up process

> Download our User Testing Kick Off Guide

Tested by your Target Audience

In conjunction with your requirements, we will identify the major audience within your website and using this information, determine their characteristics and demographics of those that will test the website. We will use this information as the basis for the type of user we will use in the testing process.

Users are asked to perform a series of tasks and the ease or difficulty with which these tasks are performed will be recorded.

As the user moves throughout the tasks, he or she will verbalise their thought process as they try to complete each task. Each task will be timed and all actions will be noted.

All user experience / user task analysis studies are carried out in the same controlled environment with no third party influence or interruption.

How it All Works

The usability testing takes place in our meeting room where we set up the usability lab, complete with video cameras and using state-of-the-art software we're able to capture what the user is doing on-screen, together with optional audio commentary and a video of the user carrying out the test.

During the usability testing participants are instructed to think aloud at all times. If they ever fall silent for more than a few seconds they're encouraged to keep talking. Our usability testers are trained to ask questions and elicit thoughts in a non-biased and neutral manner.

Participants are assigned specific tasks to carry out and their ability to complete these tasks is monitored. Once the testing is complete we'll conduct a brief interview with each person. We'll typically conduct the usability testing with 5-10 participants per user group.

Other Technical Tests

We also carry out other tests relating to accessibility, commercialising of content, and technology used. These include page load times, saturation tests, benchmarking, colour and contrast, screen readers, search engine optimisation, creative content at much more. In addition we also look at the eMarketing of your website and its communications.

Report and Recommendations

Following the completion of the user experience testing, we will provide you with a full 'easy to read' report that provides information on user feedback, our findings, both positive and negative, and provides recommendations to help you achieve compliance to the documented usability principles and guidelines known as heuristics.

If desired, you will also receive an Interactive CD-ROM based presentation featuring video highlights of usability testing sessions.

Call for a chat on 0845 602 6729