Web Site Usability & Design
If you’re going to have a Web site, it might as well be functional. The obvious advantage to having a good Web presence is giving your audience easy access to up-to-date and well organized information. You need to provide useful information that site visitors can first find and then use.
Usability Testing Process
As part of a well-formed design process, usability testing of online interfaces and Web sites can produce valuable feedback on navigation and design validity. We have experience conducting usability studies for Web sites that need just a little tweaking, as well as those that will be completely redesigned.
After soliciting input from you on the Web site’s purpose, primary and secondary target markets and a selection of typical tasks, we recruit testers who fit the demographics of your audiences. With one-on-one testing and questioning of users, we determine if there are barriers to them finding the information they need or in performing the typical tasks they need to accomplish.
Usability testing goes beyond looking for broken links and misspelled words. We discuss expectations of navigation labels, content organization, navigation structures and ask the users to perform typical tasks on the site.
Web site Design
Our team can also take you from usability testing through final Web design. In addition to meeting with you to determine the scope and purpose of your site, we work closely with you on the information architecture — the categorization, organization and labeling of the content.
Much of the time we follow up with a redesign of the Web site, taking into account what was learned from the usability testing along with input from the client and the site’s stakeholders.
We have provided testing and/or Web site design for more than eight different departments or committees in the last year or so, including External Relations, Office of the President, Commission for the Status of Women, Residence Life, University College, Advising Resource Center, Diversity Resource Office and College of Humanities Business Office.
A specific example of Residence Life is shown below, with “before and after” screenshots of the home page. The redesign of the site allows various diverse user groups to navigate more clearly to the information they need. Easy to browse residence hall information was also redesigned to allow students to “pop back and forth” between videos, photos, testimonials and hall details and floor plans.
Before:
After:
See the redesigned Residence Life Web site.
Contact us:
For more information on usability testing contact Jan Knight directly at 626-1315 or jknight@email.arizona.edu
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