Easy way to make sure your website works well

Feb 4 2010 by Lee Duddell, The Journal

THEY may be in different divisions, but just how easy to use and fan-friendly are the websites of Newcastle United and Sunderland AFC?

We found out by observing just how easy to use normal internet users found each site. They found buying match tickets on both sites pretty easy. But there were a few own goals when it came to other key tasks, like booking a stadium tour, with missing product information, disappearing pages and invisible buttons adding to users’ woes. But this is typical of many websites.

Have you ever found yourself thinking “why is this website making it so hard for me to spend my money here?”. It’s happened to me, more than a few times. But put yourself in the shoes of a website owner: how do you make sure your website is delivering the right customer experience?

In the past, website owners used expensive labs with two-way mirrors to observe invited participants use their site or they commissioned consultants to provide an expert review. Although both methods can provide great results, they tended to be so expensive and time consuming that most website owners simply didn’t bother.

But now there’s a much faster and cheaper way to test the user friendliness of a website: ‘online user testing’.

For less than the price of a football ticket website owners can get internet users to complete tasks on a website and watch their screens and hear their frustrated voices while they do it.

A growing number of companies now provide exactly this service meaning there’s no excuse for website owners to avoid testing the user friendliness of their sites.

But does it work? Yes. And it works pretty well – studies show that sites tested with real users (the technical term is usability testing) are 80% better than those that are not.

And that means more sales, registrations and happier customers. Which surely must be a good thing for both internet users and website owners, as well as football fans!

:: Lee Duddell is co-founder of www.whatusersdo.com