- Currently, there is a striking imbalance between how much time and effort is spent on designing and authoring web sites and the time spent on evaluation. Very often evaluation consisits solely of the designer's impressions of the site.
- Hands-on usability testing is an extremely easy way of gathering invaluable feedback about a web site. It is widely thought that 85% of a site's usability issues can be identified by testing with just 5 users. For example, see Jacob Neilsen's 'Why You Only Need to Test With 5 Users' article.
- Two consequences of a lack of usability are, firstly, users tend to have low confidence in the validity of the content of a site. Secondly, and particularly for disabled users, low usability tends to foster low self-esteem which, in turn, reduces a user's confidence in a site.
- Usability goals and accessibility goals are synonymous. Having taken account of what few accessibility 'rules' there are, hands-on usability testing will enhance a site's accessibility.
There are a three key assumptions which underly the reasons for undertaking hands-on usability tests:
- The designer or author of a site is probably the last person to be in a position to be able to effectively ascertain the usability of their web pages.
- As users change and web technology changes, there is always more to learn about how to design sites and how users use sites. As such, there are no set answers to usability. However, in looking for solutions, hands-on usability testing places the user to the fore rather than attempting to tell users what they want.
- Hands-on usability testing places a site's purpose, rather than impression or look, to the forefront of design and authoring isues. Moreover, how well a site meets a user's purpose and aims is considered as the primary aspect of a site's impression.
< Previous - home - Next >
|
