From Apply Now,
Your Guide to Web Usability.
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Usability tests are always a good way to see how others visiting your site will see it and interact with your design. You use them everyday whether you conduct them yourself or not. These are the tests that create best practice standards. Usability tests provide you with much more information than might be apparent at first glance:

•They help one to explore not only what is failing, but why it may be failing—a piece of data far more valuable than just another number.
•You may also find unexpected Fatal Usability Problems.

Usability Testing How-To: Overview

1. Basic Strategies- Following some basic rules will make your usability tests far more effective, allowing for more complete revisions as you build a site that is intuitive and informative.

•Test a small group of usability test subjects
•Choose individuals that are representative of your site audience
•Focus on particular aspects of the site
•Give your subjects goals rather than questions
•Present goals in a series of short tasks
•Use a Task Analysis to focus on the user's goals when visiting the site

2. Decide What to Test- Deciding what to test is as important as how you test it. Here are a couple of guidelines that will help determine what on your site you should take another look at during usability tests.

•Test the labeling and navigation
•Focus on common tasks rather than extreme cases
•Look at important areas on your site that are unique from other sites
•Use the time in your usability test to look at those items of which you are unsure
•Use what you already know about the site and its history to test improvement and changes.

3. Choose Your Exercises- It is imporant with each new test to look at your objectives and decide which exercises best serve your needs. Here are a few suggestions:

•Open Card Sort
•Closed Card Sort
•Paper Prototyping
•Cognitive Walkthrough

Naturally, different approaches to usability tests make sense for different types of websites. But regardless of a site’s size or subject, usability testing drives good design and great success.