Usability (as well as accessibility) is a too broad topic to be discussed in one post of course. Besides, I am no professional web designer or usability professional to offer any expert advice on that. Still I’ve come across a couple of fun and useful tools that should be shared at SEJ:
1. Five Second Test – run a quick free page usability poll:
- make a screenshot of a web page you want to test;
- upload it to Five Second Test site and grab the link of your test;
- spread the link (via social media, for example): people will be offered to look at your screenshot for 5 seconds and then write down 5 things they managed to remember;
- receive service email messages with the people’s answers;
- collect the messages and then organize the data to define most outstanding (easier to remember) elements of the web page.
2. Feng-Gui shows you the heat map of any image you submit. I am not sure as to how reliable the results are (as I never ran any “real” eye-tracking heatmap checks with my blog) but according to their FAQ:
Feng-GUI creates heatmaps based on an algorithm that predicts what a real human would be most likely to look at.
This algorithm is based on:
- color;
- orientation;
- density, contrast;
- intensity;
- size;
- closure;
- curve.
3. Usability checklist – just print it out and check the “rating” boxes where you can (or create your own scoring system if you like).
And of course be sure to check regularly the best Usability and Accessibility forum I am aware of!
Thanks for turning me on to this, Ann.
This could be a great way for me to show our clients (or our designers sometimes) how the message can get lost in the clutter.
I’ve bookmarked it- I hope others really start to use this too.
Just done a few 5 second tests – very very addictive. Going to set a few of my sites up on it. A web developer that I work with loves usability so going to pass it his way too – cheers for the heads-up on that one Ann!
Ben
Feng-GUI just made my day. That’s awesome. Thanks for the tip! Sending this post to my colleagues.
Very interesting selection of tools. Don’t forget the other side of usability; accessibility for elderly and disabled. http://www.webstandards.org/learn/tutorials/
Ah! My favorite topic :) Thanks for mentioning Cre8asiteforums Usability and Accessibility forum. Much appreciated.
For those looking for real usability help, look for task analysis and conversions testing. As Ann says, usability is too large a topic for one quicky post. It goes way beyond having a pretty UI. Even non-pretty sites do well when the lead tasks are clear and easy to follow.
i spent more than five minutes :-)
Another usability check list can be founded here: http://www.infodesign.com.au/usabilityresources/evaluation/webevaluation.asp
Cool! What a good idea.
@Charlie, it would be good to see reliability studies on Feng Gui though.
Wow! Nice things… Thank you :)
Great post, Ann. I hadn’t seen that FiveSecond test before. Very intriguing. It’s particularly appropriate since Michael Gladwell, author of Blink, is just launching another book, Outliers: The Story of Success.
Google “Crazy egg”
This for me has been the ultimate tool for understanding what visitors are doing on your site.
I have done total site redesigns based on the very intuitive patterns that this technology displays.
Well worth a a 2 or 3 month sub.
S
Great tips, Ann – thanks!
Google Analytics has a site overlay feature which allows your site to be pulled up (obviously only if GA is installed) with percentage and actual clicks for different buttons across site.
This feature does illustrate what areas or products are more popular on site in reference to total clicks.
Great post.
Thanks.
Very interesting selection of tools. I have done total site redesigns based on the very intuitive patterns that this technology displays.
Thanks for these tips, Ann!
Great selection of tools especially the 5 second test! I would also add Crazy egg for heatmaps!!
Crazy egg for heatmaps… it’s a great idea but we found it slowed the load times down too much so we pulled it.
Anybody have similar experience or found a work around/alternative?
Yes thats true I had the same problem with crazyegg for sometime. A similar tool is http://www.clicktale.com
Thanks PPC Blog – I’ll check it out.
This is great! I was astonished by the Five Second Test and the Feng-Gui, have to try it. I also know a few people who will be glad to use these fun tools. I’ll have to notify them too. Nice one. Hope there’s more. ^_^
Gidseo & PPC Blog,
We are constantly working on improving the load time of our CrazyEgg JavaScript. Improvements plus additional features will be coming in the New Year.
Also, Five Second Test is awesome, we have been using it for a few months now, and can’t live without it now.
Hiten
Hiten
Sounds good – another reason to look forward to the New Year…
Thats awesome Hiten, its good to know that you guys are working on this. I have suggested Crazyegg to all my clients and they all used it for the PPC landing pages. Its a great tool.
thanks this test no bad tool!
Another one to add to your list is Loop11 (www.loop11.com).