UsabilityIs it really important in your Website?
In your opinion, what is a usable website?(select one)
A. A website that can be easily used by the end user
B. A website that can be easily designed by the web UI engineer
C. A website that meets the requirements of the client
D. You don’t really know ;)
Of course the Answer is…
A. A website that can be easily used by the end user
Background
More than83% of Internet users are likely to leave a web site if it takes too many clicks to find what they are looking for.
$25 billion is lost every year due to web site usability issues. ~Arthur Anderson Internet Survey~
The demand to check website usability continues to grow.
HCI guidelines of W3C’s WCAG, ISO 924, HHS and IEEE are considered as the most important web usability guidelines to check in web.
Existing tools to check usability issues in websites
Tools that communicates with experts to
ensure the designs are usable and accessible
Existing tools to check usability issues in websites
Concept Feedbackhttp://www.conceptfeedback.com/
Feedback Armyhttp://www.feedbackarmy.com/
Pros & cons
Pros: Get free expert guidelines.
Cons: Reviews are based only on images of designs.
No guarantee that the reviewers’ opinions reflect the actual user experience.
Existing tools to check usability issues in websites
Tools that track the real end
users’ actions to evaluate usability
of the designs.(use heat maps or
records user actions within a
session)
Existing tools to check usability issues in websites
ClickHeat http://www.labsmedia.com/clickheat/index.html
ClickTale http://www.clicktale.com/
Clicxpy http://ww2.clixpy.com/
Pros & cons
Pros: Tracks real users trying to conduct real tasks on the website.
Captures and analyzes real user data as the site visitors complete tasks.
Cons: There is no way to ask users why they clicked where they did.
These tools are not free.
Existing tools to check usability issues in websites
Tools that check for guidelines
compliance of web pages by providing the URL of the web page to be checked.
Existing tools to check usability issues in websites
MAGENTA http://giove.isti.cnr.it:8080/MagentaWeb2/
Accessibility Valet http://valet.webthing.com/access/url.html
TAW http://www.tawdis.net/
Pros & cons
Pros: Can check for guidelines compliance of web pages.
Can check the dynamic behavior of websites.
Cons: Process takes place after design and, usually, after hosting the site.
What Netcraft says…(Netcraft is an Internet services company which provides web server and web hosting market-share analysis, including web server and operating system detection.)
The Netcraft website shows the number of websites on the Internet as at February 2013 as below.
There is a visible gap between the number of hostnames and the number of active sites.
Only 29.3% of total sites are active at present.
So, do you think if your website is less usable for its users, that they will use it anymore?
References
[1] Netcraft. (2013, Feb.).February 2013 Web Server Survey.[Online].Available:http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2013/02/01/february-2013-web-server-survey.html
[2] Adele Sage. (2013, Feb.).Forrester. [Online].Available: http://blogs.forrester.com/adele_sage/12-03-15-lessons_learned_from_1500_website_user_experience_reviews
[3] Central Bank of Sri Lanka. (2011).Annual Report 2011.[Online]. Available:http://www.cbsl.gov.lk/pics_n_docs/10_pub/_docs/efr/annual_report/AR2011/English/content.htm
[4] Web Accessibility Initiative. (2006).Complete List of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools.[Online]. Available: http://www.w3.org/WAI/RC/tools/complete
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