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Readers’ Poll: How do You Test for Usability?

Readers’ Poll: How do You Test for Usability?

on Mar 30th 2012 with 5 comments

You’ve brainstormed, planned, wireframed, prototyped, designed, built – and you’re about ready for deployment. Just one step left; checking the usability of your work. Will users actually experience things the way you intend? Will it be successful in achieving its goals? How do you find out before launching the site?

Of course, end users are fundamentally important.

Accepting criticism as a web designer is notoriously sticky. When you’ve worked so hard on a project, poured all your experience and creativity into building what (at least in your eyes) is a perfect solution, who is your best friend to think that they know better?! They don’t even know what HTML is, so how dare they turn their nose up at your web design?!

Of course, end users are fundamentally important. If they’re not handling your site properly, goals won’t be met and you’ll ultimately have dissatisfied clients to deal with. So how do you test that they’ll be channelled in the right direction, click the correct buttons, complete the necessary actions? Do you ask your Grandma to have a go? Wander round a shopping mall with a laptop, asking the general public what they think? Do you invest in a dedicated service to deliver usability analytics? Perhaps you don’t even really bother? I’m curious to know..

Additional Usability Testing Resources

 
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Hi there! My name's Ian Yates. Welcome to Webdesigntuts+ :)  

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  • Hamid

    I let my cat loose on the keyboardxDDD

  • http://www.ushowtell.com cpd

    To add to the toolset:

    Userlytics.com is a comprehensive platform that allows you to:

    Record simultaneous screen cast + webcam + audio

    Annotate recordings

    Identify & hyperlink key events & comments

    Complement with quantitative survey

    Share with colleagues access to specific projects and/or file sets

    Recruit on a DIY basis, or have it done for you, around the world

  • http://www.newmediasources.ca usability testing

    I found usabilla pretty good. I use it often.

  • http://www.inspectlet.com/ add Inspectlet to the list

    Great list I have tried a few of them out (not all of them though) I personally like Inpectlet and I use it for my sites quite a bit, I would love to see your review on it if you ever get around to trying it out.

  • http://www.mousestats.com website heatmap

    Without usability testing tools, do not really know how I could improve the designs. I’m a fan of MouseStats.com , In my view it is the ideal choice.