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Meta Tags are code/scripts that are picked up by search engine web crawlers and drawn into their databases to better identify sites and reference them for users.  They include things like Key Words (which we’re discussing today) and Descriptions (which will be discussed later this month in the blog), just to name a few.

Key Words are those words identified in your Meta Tags, and used in repetition throughout your page that are automatically detected and give relevance to your page in search engines.

So a handyman website may have the Meta Tag/Key Words “Handyman, Repair Man, Fix” in their script; and a hair dresser’s site may have the Meta Tag/Key Words “Hair Dresser, Hair Stylist, Stylist, Perm” in their script.  The optimization comes in you taking it upon yourself to use those key words repetitively in throughout your page’s code, or making the Key Words the headings in your code.  Key Words are only effective if you use the as KEY words in your site.  Otherwise they serve no purpose other than to put you in place number 245 out of 10,000 returned searches.

1. Remember that people like their eye sight – so make sure you use easily contrasting colors for your text (for example – this newsletter has a white background with black lettering)
2. Remember people don’t want to scroll all day; some is good – but a lot is bad unless you don’t expect them to use whatever is at the bottom of your 500 foot page
3. Remember people like to use the back button provided in their browsers – sites designed entirely in flash disregard this truth, and run the risk of people being upset with the usability once the cool factor wears off
4. Remember that simple domain names are better than complex ones for returning visits – 123.com will almost always be guaranteed to get way more visitors than ThePeoplesRepublicofBreadWeaeversUnitedbyBeaverCreekinWisconsin.com (hey… never say “never”)
5. Remember to design to conform to the most used browsers and screen sizes (e.g. Internet Explorer and Mozilla on a 1024 x 768 monitor) – keep your head up for these trends

Lastly, remember that designing in scripts that don’t conform with web standards may look good on your screen with your settings – but it may show up as crap on someone else’s screen; please be w3c validated and for the most part compliant (validate your script here)

A good definition of a hit is:

A request to the web server for a file. This can be an HTML page, an image (jpeg, gif, png, etc.), a sound clip, a cgi script, and many other file types. An HTML page can account for several hits: the page itself, each image on the page, and any embedded sound or video clips. Therefore, the number of hits a website receives is not a valid popularity gauge, but rather is an indication of server use and loading.

Let’s assume Mr. Doe was aware of this definition, and used it to his advantage to get to and beyond his 84,518 hits in a week. 

On his page he has 10 images and each one makes noise when it is rolled over.  He also has a background for an image.  And he has about 15 advertisements on his page too so that he can possibly generate some revenue because he’s a go-getter.  Background music plays when you load the page, and little .gifs dance all up and down the borders of the page (let’s say there’s 50 of these for laughs).  And he has 20 embedded videos on the page because he likes to keep a video journal of his exploits in whatever.  And let’s not forget the page counts to every time it’s loaded/requested by people who go to www.JohnDoeBlog.com.

Now let’s do the math:

1          (for the page)

10        (images)

10        (image noises)

1          (background)

15        (ads)

1          (music)

50        (.gifs)

20        (videos)

108 hits each time the page is loaded

John has crappy bandwidth, a lot of stuff on his page, and he is moderately popular on Facebook^TM; bringing him a few unique visitors a daily basis (lets say 23).  The people visit but get impatient and hit reload like 5 times because his blog always loads everything but the newest video (that’s 108 x 5 = 540 hits for one person in a matter of seconds).  Remember he gets 23 of these same people for seven days straight in our example.

So the Unique Visitor status stays the same (a better metric by the way) at 23 all week.  But his math was [(108 hits x 5 reload prompts) x 23 people] x 7 days = 86,940 hits produced in a week by 23 obsessively impatient Facebook^TM associations…

That’s why I don’t base measures solely on hits.  They lie.  It was a popular practice in the internet’s early years.  But people soon thought through the math like I’ve just shown you, and quickly discredited hits as a valid metric for measuring site popularity.  If anything it’ll tell you whether or not you should project to purchase a wider bandwidth so that people won’t be reloading like John’s visitors.

Have you ever heard the saying “what get’s measured gets done?”  That very principle led to the two design principles I’m about to share with you.  Studies on web-site performance have found these truths to be constants (at least for now):

1. Your basic web page has a few areas on it commonly called “hotspots” (see figure).  These spots exists out of years of designers accidently training visitors to look at certain portions of a web page.  People are used to looking in the upper-left portion of the screen (hotspot #1) to find logos, the back button, even the field where they type addresses in their browsers.  This is a vital spot for getting across branded messages (logos, slogans, key icons, etc…).

Hotspot #2 emerged out of what I just see as a tendency to read from left to right (you’ll hear different theories on this one based on whether or not you include the bottom-right corner of the screen or not; a very cold viewing spot for most website visitors).  You can generally count on many people reading websites in the European fashion of reading books – which ensures that they will read from left to right.  There are exceptions across different cultures, but it’s generally safe to run with the book reading rule.

1. Designing above the fold (placing your most important content in the area that is immediately visible to visitors of your site without them having to scroll) is constantly called into question modern web designers.  Studies are out there that both support and refute this practice.  Some say, “Oh it’ll increase your click-thru rate by xx%,” while others say, “xx% of people always scroll to the bottom of web pages.”  I say that my research on the topic has found both to be true in carrying instances. 

In my opinion it depends on what your site offers.  If your site is an information hub on topics that are for a specialized segment – then go ahead and design below the fold because the site’s visitors are an interested niche who will more than likely go to all over your pages looking for anything they find intriguing.  If you are trying to sell a particular item though – say for instance your new model vacuum that can give any surface that new fresh pine scent – then please use some marketing gut instinct and put it first so that people will be guaranteed to see it.   

Both of those findings were driven by countless measures of peoples’ web browsing activity.  The Analyst fed that information to the web designer and it led to great successes on the web as well as a lot of cookie-cutter looking designs.  These are two good practices to follow, but they can stifle creativity and lead to sacrifices in other areas. 

If you’re still interested in this subject matter, look for additional info to be posted on the blog this month on a weekly basis.

Guess what, the bubble bursted, many years ago. Like many things in life, it all about the bottom line, the almighty dollar. Businesses don't thrive on lookie-loos. Would Macy's stay in business if people only window shopped, or if they came into the store, just browsed the counters and racks, then left?

I run into people all the time with a "hit counter" mentality. So many site & business owners proclaim "Our website receives thousands of hits." Yet, whether they currently know it or not, their online business is failing. It's failing because they are unaware of what is really happening on their sites; what their site visitors are actually doing.

I have a client who, in the past, would exude a mood based on the number of inquiries that were coming from the website. Some days, when several inquiries came in, life would be good. On others when, no inquiries were received, a fire alarm was raised, questioning whether the web-based form was working. When I looked into the situation further, I discovered that we were losing 95% of inquiries as part of the form submission process. Through tweaks to the form, we've made positive progress. However, without this type of business knowledge, how can you possibly know the level of success you are obtaining?

To remain relevant, whether you have a business to support, or just a personal blog, you must have access to the intelligence to understand what is happening on your website, what people are doing, are interested in. The only way to do this is via a web analytics program.

A Web Analytics program can create awareness about your site. Usability issues can be uncovered, design issues can be exposed, you name it. Recently, why looking at metrics around submitted requests for information, I determined that over 80% of request submissions were never completed. That can impact someone's bottom line significantly.

You don't have to be a scientist, computer geek or statistics guru to get valuable information out of a metrics program. You only need to use one and review it regularly.

There are several types of web analytics program out there:

• Server-based, log-file analyzer: These programs that you usually install on a local computer or server process the log files from the web server to report on information from each request to the server.
• Web-based Analytics Service: These system leverage the display of a tiny, transparent graphic on the web page to generate metrics that are sent back to the central service.

Getting Started

If you're without many resources, you might consider using one of the several free tools available. Google Analytics is a surprisingly simple, yet robust system, and best of all, it's free and easy setup. By signing-up and copy/pasting the code snippet on every page you want to track (your entire site), you can view information like

• What sections/pages are most popular?
• What time of day do most people visit your site:?
• Where are most visitors coming from?
• What search terms where used to find your site?
• What sites are sending referral traffic?
• How many conversions are taking place?
• What is driving my conversions?
• ...and so much more.

Best Practices

• Determine your site's goals / KPIs. Without a purpose, there's no need to have an online presence. If you do have a purpose, how are you going to measure how successful you are? You must determine what you want people to do, then track & measure it. In Google Analytics, you would setup conversions based on predetermined tasks, then track them. For example, below is an example of that conversion, the inquiry form mentioned above. Note that this metric shows that the majority of people who navigate to the form leave the form before actually submitting their information (92%). Not good, but thanks to the analytics system to expose the issue so it can be fixed. Anything can be viewed as a goal; request for information, requesting a brochure, downloading a file, viewing a video, etc.

• Make sure all metrics / KPIs tracked at actionable, then take action. It's "kool" to track a bunch of datapoints, but if you take no action on the metrics, you're simply a geek. If you care about your site, your track metrics. If you care enough to track, then you'll take action to improve your site.
• Look at trends, not just a isolated timeframe. 100 form submissions might sound good, however, if you look at the past 12 months, you may notice that trends show you're down an average of 20%. Make sure to compare the current with last quarter, last year, etc.
• Never depend on metrics from any one system. As every system generates its metrics differently, consider using a variety of information from multiple systems to come up with guided numbers.
• Extend your analytics to email. Do you distribute email with marketing messages or promotions? Think your limited to whatever metrics your email program provides? Guess again. You can easily tag the links to your site with attributes that Google will track. Then, you can filter reporting to just that email campaign and see how people responded.

Have any others? Have a tip or trick to share? Contribute to the discussion below...

Part of Jakob's treatise on inequal participation in online communities is that you can do little to overcome the typical contribution stats of 90-9-1, although one of the suggestions is to make participation so easy that you don't even know you're contributing. Case in point - Amazon's "people who bought this book, bought these other books" recommendations. Sounds like the easiest contribution ever - data mining and analyzing, then giving the data back to the shopper in an understandable format.

Jakob says, "Will Hill coined the term read wear for this type of effect: the simple activity of reading (or using) something will "wear" it down and thus leave its marks -- just like a cookbook will automatically fall open to the recipe you prepare the most."

What are some similar examples of displaying read wear from the online help or user assistance world? The first example that comes to my mind is a wiki's "most active pages" feature that shows the page with the most edits. However, the page with the most edits may be more controversial than truthful, so the most popular pages would be more useful than touting pages most active.

How else can you show read wear on a website? You could also show the most searched-for terms when the user searches. Concepts may be more easily connected when you understand what others were searching for.

Or, rather than showing search terms, show the most recently viewed knowledgebase articles or most popular articles. I know I've found that useful in the past when searching through BMC Software's rich knowledge base.

Just like CNN and other news sites offer a listing of the most emailed stories per hour, you could show the most emailed online help topics if your system offers the ability to email topics.

The ability to rate an article is included in many online help systems, and exposing the ratings to the reader would help in determining how "well-worn" a help topic is.

Tag clouds can display read wear as well, as I just realized while looking at the Wordpress FAQ starting page - tonight, the largest tag is "Images."

I've distilled it down to popularity, time spent on the page, rating on a page, and number of edits from strongest to weakest indicators. What other factors matter in an online help system?

Vengono presi in considerazione gli strumenti che Google Analytics mette a disposizione per il tracciamento degli eventi lato client, come il click del mouse su un bottone Flash o su un link che innesca un'azione Ajax.
Sembrano passati secoli da quando l'unico dato che si guardava nelle statistiche erano le pageviews, tanto che ultimamente i temi correlati alla web analytics sta letteralmente appassionando SEO e SEM specialists.

       First off a visitor is a computer’s best attempt at identifying how many unique people visit your site.  There is no way, from the computer’s perspective, to tell if one computer is being viewed by multiple people at once or not (or if you're even human) —so always keep in mind that this number may be off a few digits, and is an estimate at best.

      Depending on what your focus is, you’ll want to pay attention to either unique or returning visitors.  If you’re shooting for site exposure—then make unique visitors (totally new people to your site) a priority.  If you want to retain your loyal visitors and see how new marketing efforts are impacting their interests, then returning visitors are the place to look. 

      A lot of tools online will show you the two.  Your web-hosting service probably provides you with a standard analytics stats package of some sort (and if they don't - you're getting ripped off, switch now) - and there are a lot of new tools emerging online that will do these things for free.  Personally - we use Google Analytics, Weblog Expert, Unica - those are our people (we get the numbers from there, and drive results through our own analytical know-how).

      Those are the two key metrics used online.  You may then want to go on and actually begin to track IPs or member activity.  That's how you get to your most valuable visitors, and also begin to further understand your target demographic. 

      Do I have years of experience to speak of with a large company - no.  But I do have years of practical application with these topics - and trust me it works.  It's a major part of any website - you have to look at, analyze, understand, conceive, retain, dig into, and get to know (yes I know - they're redundant intentionally) your customer/visitor again and again.  Just keep in mind that before anyone is a customer - they are a visitor first.  Manage Visitor impressions and you will more than likely see your business output flourish.

Total clicks: 22 (less than 1% of total clicks analyzed)

• 18 of these clicks were made in less than 20 seconds
• 11 made in under 5 seconds
• 8 made in under 3 seconds
• 5 made in under 2 seconds
• Only 4 of the clicks came after looking at the page for more than 20 seconds

These results are the opposite of what I would have expected. I would have thought that the people clicking on the corporate logo would have been people that were lost but over 33% clicked the link in less than 3 seconds. I know we're all in pursuit of instant satisfaction but I would think it would take people longer than that to get frustrated and click on the logo. These statistics leave me even more perplexed then ever as to why people are drawn toward clicking there.

As for the total clicks, it's a low number when you consider it in comparison to the roughly 400 clicks being analyzed but it
out numbers several content areas on the home page and some primary navigation elements as well. There has to be more here. Perhaps I need to run a second test and see if I receive similar results.

crazyegg can be used for free. They give 5000 visits per month which is good for analyzing one or two pages depending on your site traffic. I've found that you need to get somewhere in the 500 to 1000 click range to get some real meaningful data when looking at the heatmap and confetti overlays. crazyegg also tracks clicks for outbound links which Google Analytics can't do right now. This makes it a nice complimentary analytics tool if you're only using Google right now.

Já ji našel na webu, když jsem hledal, co by mi dělalo spolehlivou statistiku přístupů a dokázalo to taky vygenerovat slušný report. Jasně, je tu nějaký Toplist, ale upřímně, jeden report, navíc hodně osekanej není právě mnoho. Navíc, Toplist si v poslední době nějak vybírá své oddechové chvilky a každou chvíli vypadne a neměří.

Na druhou stranu, Google Analytics je super, ale taky to občas padne a naměří pěkné blbosti. Stává se to zřídka, ale stává se to.

Je tu ovšem jeden lék. Jmenuje se Mint. Stojí sice 30 dolarů za jeden web a všechny subdomény na něm, ale výsledky jsou nádherný. V základu poskytuje statistik dost, ale když si ho ještě opepříte, tak je opravdu super.

 Web analytics is a tool to analyze the  online visitor's behavior to your website, watch the process of collecting data about the activities of people accessing your website such as how they found you, when they visited, what pages they looked at, what they bought, how long they stay at a page, what they clicked, and so on. Web analytics would analyze that data to help you improve your website to meet the behavior of the visitors, subsequently, increase the sales for your online business.

This is a detailed review of most popular web analytics   in the market.  The web analytics reviewed includes Google Analytics, ClickTrack, Coremetrics, Firelick, Index Tool, OneStat, Web Trend,  Omniture, ClickTale, and MetaTraffic.

With customers deciding whether or not they need what you have in the first three seconds of reading/seeing/hearing your marketing message, what you say first, matters most.

With a directive that important, that demanding, you can't help but mull over your headlines endlessly wondering if you'd convert more sales with a catchier tag line. Some of us more enterprising marketers have even run careful split tests to measure the performance of punctuation and font.

You don't have to be that pedantic, but you should still pay close attention to the headlines that you write. Especially if that headline is perched atop your landing page or sales letter. Your sales letter has a pretty hefty responsibility. It has to grab the visitor by the collar and drag his/her eyes through to your next hook. It's got to do all this while still being short, concise and clever.

Lucky for you, though, you already have some very helpful tools at your disposal to help you find the difference between a good headline and a great headline.

Leveraging Google Adwords

Did you know that if you're running a Google Adwords campaign (or any other PPC advertising program) you already have a perfect list of potential headlines at your disposal?

Think about it, every PPC text advertisement already has all the properties of a good headline. A PPC ad has to grab a viewers and guide them safely away from a veritable mine field of competing ads, search results and exit links. What's better is this headline source comes fully equipped with metrics. Almost all PPC ad network providers track click through statistics. Go through your PPC Ads and narrow them down to the top five with the best click through rates.

Google Website Optimizer

Google has introduced a new feature for Ad Words users called the Website Optimizer. It works by letting you to split your landing page up into segments, like Headline, Intro, Offer, Hook, Order. You can then write multiple variations for each of these sections. After you insert a bit of javascript code, Google will randomize these variations and measure conversion statistics to help you identify which variants are producing the best conversion rates.

Simple sales letter style landing pages are perfect candidates for Google's Website Optimizer, since they are very basic one page pitch that lend themselves naturally for segmenting and varying.

Split Testing

While the above two techniques represent new and exciting ways to optimize your websites and increase your sales, they're both simply sophisticated versions of the tried and true, split test.

Split testing is essentially creating two or more versions of the same website and collecting statistics using a stat tracker like Google Analytics or StatCounter. Split testing is one of the most important skills in the web marketers resume, so if you're not already a split testing expert, there's no better time to start than now.

Trovo questi mezzi di analisi del traffico e dell'utenza molto utili nel mondo del web marketing o per gli analisti, meno per i semplici bloggers; tutti questi dati, queste statistiche e grafici non fanno altro che aumentare la febbre da classifica di quella fetta dell'utenza che punta più a dare visibilità al proprio blog/sito che contenuti, quelli che pur di scalare la solita classifica che troviamo ormai in qualunque servizio e che piace tanto, aggiungono tag impropri/inutili ai propri contenuti o post contenenti le parole chiave più in voga.

Contatori e classifiche usate per attirare più utenti possibili, ma arma a doppio taglio, che fa anche aumentare la spazzatura.

Che ne pensate?

Addthis.com

by Steven Streight

The W.D. Boyce Council of the Boy Scouts of America was concerned about their staff Web site. Complaints from users indicated that the site might have some usability problems. The W.D. Boyce web development committee decided to revise the design of the site, but wanted to identify usability deficiencies prior to the re-design.

As a new volunteer member of the committee, my responsibility consisted of advising the committee on usability and textual content issues. Here was my opportunity to make a significant contribution of expertise.

I suggested that my usability team observe typical users interacting with the Web site. Watching actual users attempt to accomplish tasks at the Web site would enable us to pinpoint specific usability problems. After I explained how a user observation test could be conducted, and what would be required of test subjects and testing facilities, the committee gave me the go-ahead.

www.wdboyce.org is an information-driven, text-dominant Web site, with relatively complex information architecture. Vital information is often buried in non-obvious locations, requiring users to embark on "linking expeditions" (site navigation-enabled information hunts) that are frustrating and time-consuming. Users are confronted with redundant links (differently labeled links that lead to same content), pseudo-redundant links (similarly labeled links that lead to very different content), and faulty link nomenclature (link labels that are vague or inaccurate).

The organization wants its staff leaders and volunteers to use the site as their primary source of organization news, policy statements, activity updates, and forms to download to reduce paper and postage costs for the organization.

W.D. Boyce web committee members understood how web text must be formatted differently from print media. Readers of books, magazine articles, and personal letters, for example, tend to read in sequential order, from beginning to end. Some passages may be skipped over, but print reading is far more linear (straight line from point A to point B, etc., to point Z) than web viewing. It's a mistake to think that web users will interact with Web site text the same way they consume print media text.

The sheer abundance of online material, and the free and easy access to it, contributes to users racing through Web sites, even relevant ones, until they spot the exact material they want. Unfortunately, most of the text on the site was in a "print read" format.

To convert the print read text to "web scan" text, I proposed using the following techniques:

• Shorter paragraphs
• Copy chunking, with intrasite hypertext links
• Bulleted and numbered lists replacing dense text blocks
• More descriptive heads and subheads
• Underlining of hypertext links
• Selected and non-selected hypertext link color differentiation (blue for unselected, not yet visited links; purple for selected, already visited links)
• Elimination of unnecessary articles and superfluous words

The committee also agreed that a Site Index and some Multiple User-Segmented Site Maps (suggested paths through the site, based on user type) might be a good addition. It's suspected that users experience confusion upon arriving at the site. It's not clear where a specific type of user (leader, volunteer, donor, parent, or sponsor) should go in the site, nor where certain items are found, e.g., application forms for an upcoming event.

However, even with these enhancements, the site was still considered to be in need of a complete overhaul. To get our bearings for the construction of the new site, a User Observation Test was conducted on the current site. What follows are the forms and procedures we used.

Those who are new to web usability analysis, or those who are familiar only with certain aspects, may see something clarified that was previously mysterious.

The first thing we needed to do was recruit volunteers to be test subjects.

Computer Skills Level Telesurvey

We wanted two low level, two intermediate, and two high level computer skills users in the test. Test subjects were phoned and qualified by a Computer Skills Level Telesurvey. There is no strict "If, then" methodology for this. It's more like "If, probably," as in: "If [such and such is true], probably [the user is at this skills level]."

The questions we used were:

• What they generally used a computer for, with ten suggested uses, from email only (LOW) to professional IT occupational work (HIGH).
• How they found Web sites to visit, from magazines with lists of hot sites (LOW) to multiple specialized search engines (HIGH).
• How they primarily navigated a Web site, from navbars and main menu link listings (LOW) to site maps and advanced search boxes (HIGH).
• How much time they spent on the computer, from less than one hour a day (LOW) to more than three hours a day (HIGH).
• What is their main usage of a computer, from pleasure or entertainment (LOW) to professional online forums and discussion lists (HIGH).
• What skills level they perceive themselves to be at, from novice to computer expert.
• What are their favorite Web sites, open ended, with AOL, Yahoo, eBay, amazon.com being ranked LOW to Slashdot, Wired News, and wikipedia being ranked HIGH. (Note: this is no reflection on the quality or professionalism of the Web sites so tagged. Low skills users tend to visit more popular, high traffic sites, while high skills users tend to visit more technical, specialized sites.)

Introductory Remarks to Test Subjects

Test subjects were thanked for coming. They were emphatically reassured that this evaluation was not to determine their intelligence or computer savvy, but to determine the efficiency and usability of the Web site. Gourmet deli cold cut sandwiches were available: easy to feast upon, not messy. Cans of cold soda were also provided.

Subjects were tested one at a time. Although the surveys were intended for post-test purposes, subjects filled out two of them while waiting to be tested, to decrease the amount of time they had to spend in this process. While the System Usability Scale Questionnaire had to be filled out after the usability test, whether the other surveys were filled out before or after the test was not a vital concern.

User Observation Test Procedures

Subjects were asked to sit in front of a computer monitor displaying the Home Page of the Web site being tested.

They were given a list of ten site task assignments. The test administrator read each assignment to the subject, prior to the subject performing the task; to be sure he understood what to do. When the administrator said, "Go," a stopwatch was activated and the task performance was timed to one hundredth of a second.

Video recording of the testing is recommended, but was not available in this case. The administrator took notes on how the subject attempted to accomplish each task, what links were followed, what navigation tools were utilized, and what comments were made.

When it was apparent that a subject was exasperated and would not be able to complete a task, the administrator said, "Give up? That's okay. This one's a tough one. Here's how you can find this." Test subjects were shown a site path leading to the information.

The administrator engaged in silent, non-invasive observation. No assistance was given, but, to keep the test from being emotionally cold and inhuman, friendly comments were made, such as: "It probably should have its own link on the Home Page" or "That's good thinking, but the site regretfully wasn't designed that way."

One test subject pulled the monitor closer to him due to his poor vision. Another was a bit awkward with the mouse; he kept clicking the right click mechanism or pushing down on the mouse wheel, thereby activating unexpected functions. In this case, the administrator intervened, informing the subject of his operational errors.

Link Strategy Survey

This questionnaire was designed to take the place of "card sorting," in which the user arranges cards with link labels or page section titles printed on them, to convey the desired information architecture for a Web site.

Labels of top navbars, left column main menu links, and bottom of page text links are presented. Users are told, for example, "A top navbar is a horizontal navigation tool that runs across an upper region of the Home Page. Here are the links in that navbar. What information would you expect to be provided by these links?" Space is provided for them to describe what they think should be in those links.

We also listed links we are considering adding to the left column main menu. Test subjects were asked to check mark those they agreed should be included. They were also asked if they paid much attention to bottom of page text links. We asked them if they thought they'd use a "Search This Site" search engine text entry box. Finally, we asked them, "For what purpose do you primarily use this Web site?"

Site Satisfaction Survey

This questionnaire, which determines if the Web site is meeting the organization's goals, was prefaced with, "Tell us what you really think, not what you assume we may be hoping to hear." Test subjects were asked:

• Do you consider this Web site to be your #1 source of organization news, information, and forms?
• Would you prefer another source for these things, and what would that be? (Email was mentioned by a test subject.)
• Do you consider quick and easy access to organization news and information to be important?
• Do you use your computer much, or visit other Web sites? Multiple choices ranging from "No...or I rarely visit _______ sites" to "Yes, online shopping" and "Yes, at my job I do computer work or visit Web sites."
• Average time you spend on the computer: ______ hours per day.
• What does this Web site do best? Not do a very good job at?
• What could be done to improve this Web site?
• Was anything missing from this Web site? Please specify.
• Any comments you'd care to make about this Web site testing program?

System Usability Scale Questionnaire

The final form we asked test subjects to fill out is our modified version of the Digital Equipment Company Ltd. System Usability Scale (SUS) Scale, which is in the public domain. We modified this scale to accommodate Web sites. In its original version, it's designed for assessing any software or hardware system. It can be seen at www.usabilitynet.org under Home > Tools & Methods (bottom text link) > Established Questionnaires > SUS.

Our modified version of this questionnaire, which is strongly recommended for usability tests of Web sites, is available via email to anyone who contacts me to request it.

Conclusion

Now the hard part begins: compiling the results into a concise report for the organization. Provide the organization with a brief explanation of test methodology, a summary of the test results, and a prioritized list of recommended actions to take, based on the test results.

Let the organization know that no Web site is perfect. New web norms are being established at high-popularity sites. Current users are improving their skills and expecting advanced functionalities. New web users are continually logging onto the net landscape.

All these facts point to the reality that both the World Wide Web and the collective pool of users are constantly changing. Thus, usability evaluation should be a periodic, ongoing process, not a one time event.