Wednesday, January 30, 2008 by Mistlee
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| 01.30.08
19 Steps For A 20 Minute Usability Review
 By Stoney deGeyter
Performing a complete website review is rarely easy. I've found that you can start a site analysis intending to spend just a few minutes looking over it only to find that it quickly spirals into a multi-hour marathon of research.
Complete website reviews can be time consuming and often produce many more hours of work beyond that.
One of the problems is that people tend want to skip right to search engine optimization forgetting that users matter. Many people want to rush into the marketing without realizing that the website itself is part of the marketing process. This is a shame.
Investing in SEO and PPC marketing, without having performed a thorough analysis of your website is largely an exercise in vain (and yes, even new websites often need a usability analysis!) You don't have to have a perfectly usable site in order to rank well in search engines, but it is increasingly difficult to rank a site without a strong usability focus, unless you're in a very niche industry. And even if you do rank well, without good usability you're losing more customers than you need or want to be losing.
Where do you start in performing a usability review?
One of the hurdles many people have in performing a usability review of their own site is that they don't know where to start. Over the past several months I've written a number of posts outlining various usability and website architectural elements that should be a part of any detailed review process. But going through each of those can take many hours.
Being able to do a quick-scan through a site can be a very handy skill. It will help you uncover some glaring issues without having to invest hours upon hours of time all at once. After you have performed your quick scan and have fixed the bigger issues, you then have an opportunity to go back and perform a more thorough analysis.
Here is what you need to know in order to do a quickie usability review. I've also provided links to my previous posts that provide you with a lot more detail and will help you perform a more thorough analysis as time permits.
19 steps for a quickie usability review
Website navigation
Site wide navigation, including top, bottom and side navigation, should be as user-friendly as possible, ensuring that your visitors find what they expect when they click a navigation link. Check to make sure your navigation shows a logical flow of topics, subtopics and subject matter within the site and it enhances the users ability to find key information.
See: 20 Ways to NAVIGATE to Higher Conversions
Content
The content of your website is your #1 sales tool. Content weighs heavily both in terms of how users interact with your website as well as how visitors are able to determine what you offer and what each page of your website is about. Always write for your visitors. Give them the information they need in a way that spurs them to
action.
See: 9 (+1) Tips For Writing User-Friendly Content
Website Design
Continue reading this article.
About the Author:
Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing ( www.PolePositionMarketing.com), a search engine optimization / marketing firm providing SEO and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He is the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook and contributes daily to the E-Marketing Performance ( www.eMarketingPerformance.com) marketing blog. | |
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