Internet | Usability Evaluation

Introduction

Through proven scientific methods a Usability Evaluation can demonstrably improve an organisation's online effectiveness - and in so doing increase customer activity, loyalty and revenues. Making a site more usable represents sound commercial sense: effectively converting browsers into buyers and first-time buyers into repeat customers. An estimated 90% of current Internet sites exhibit poor usability (NNCG).

Improving the usability of your site is a fast, cost-effective way to improve competitive position.

A Usability Evaluation provides insight into how specific elements of a site impact the quality of the user experience by obtaining reliable and interpretable data from real people performing real tasks on the site. A Usability Evaluation can be commissioned to assess usability during development of the project.

Our Usability Evaluation report details the findings in an easily digestible format. Our approach is the most comprehensive way of improving usability, based on proven methodologies, real-life scenarios of use and real users of the website. A Usability Evaluation will provide the intelligence and direction to inform strategic online business decisions.

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The Process

We recruit a representative sample of a website's target audience and ask them to perform a series of tasks or scenarios that are typical of those a user would attempt in the real world (e.g. On a book selling site a task may be: Buy the book 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' by J.K Rowling). While performing the tasks, at our state of the art usability facilities, the participants are observed and recorded. Afterwards they are interviewed to gather further information about their experience.

We use specialised software to both collect and interpret participant behaviours. In addition to identifying usability problems our approach enables us to make recommendations to rectify them. These recommendations allow action to be taken the very same day.

We provide three key deliverables:

1. Usability report - detailed document outlining our methodology, results and their interpretation plus actionable recommendations.
    
2. Video highlights - edited video clips of the most informative parts of the tests.
    
3. Presentation - an oral presentation communicating the most important findings and recommendations.

Prior to a Usability Evaluation Online Research and Usability Metrics services can be used to specifically target lab research against identified user issues.

If you would like to discuss how a programme of usability research can be used to improve the performance of your website please call or email us and a consultant will be happy to talk with you.

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© The Usability Company 2007