Test The Usability Of Your Site

When it comes to designing your site and choosing the best layout, everybody has their own opinion of what looks good. Obviously if we have created the design or selected a theme to use, then we have placed in our minds the reason for creating our choice.

The problem is that what gets filtered through our mind, might not necessarily get passed onto other viewers. There are several ways to test the usability and flow of your site. There are various premium solutions that conduct some research or formulate some plan to determine where eyes lead to, but is there really any way to determine if its right?

The easiest way to test the usability and flow of your site is to simply monitor people actually using your site. Find friends, family, co-workers, or just somebody you can sit in front of a computer screen and let them freely peruse through your site.

• Take note of the first thing they notice or pay attention to when the site first loads.
• Are they able to effectively navigate to where they want to go? Can they find what they are looking for?
• Are they able to understand the point of the site?
• Are they clicking on ads? If you have some sort of pop-up or obtrusive ad, then are they just closing the window and moving on?

Create a list of questions you may want answers to:

• Does the color scheme match?
• Does the site look like spam? Is there definition between content and advertisement?
• Do they know what the site is about?

Regardless of what your site is about, you are ultimately trying to funnel readers somewhere. Whether you want them to comments, sign-up for newsletter, or purchase your product? The idea is to see if whatever you are highlighting is being focused on by the tester you are using and not just if your site looks good.