How to Test Your Web Site Usability

Written by Herman Drost


How to Test Your Web Site Usability Copyright 2002 by Herman Drost

When designing a web site, you are never sure how it appears to all people. This is because people use different browsers, resolutions, computers and connection speeds torepparttar Internet. Your site may look good with your browser, but absolutely horrendous in other browsers. This is why you should testrepparttar 134474 usability of your site, before you expose it torepparttar 134475 world.

What is usability testing?

This indicatesrepparttar 134476 ease with which folks can use your web site. Let’s look at a few usability factors.

Who is winningrepparttar 134477 browser war?

Here arerepparttar 134478 browser statistics: 39% Internet Explorer 6.0 51% Internet Explorer 5.0 2% Internet Explorer 4.0 3% Netscape 4.0

A few years ago Netscape wasrepparttar 134479 dominant browser, however Internet Explorer now has 80% ofrepparttar 134480 market. Withrepparttar 134481 introduction of Netscape 6.0 and 7.0 (their latest release), this may eat a little into IE’s market.

The latest browsers supportrepparttar 134482 latest designing technologies, such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS1, CSS2) and XML.

Installing different browsers

Test your web site in different browsers, so your web site can be seen by as many people as possible.

Internet Explorer Download Internet Explorer 5 and 6. The way to do this is to either have each one installed on a different computer, or to have 2 operating systems on your computer. You can do this with partition magic.

Trying to install IE 5 & 6 onrepparttar 134483 same operating sysytem doesn't work. One overridesrepparttar 134484 other.

Netscape Download NN 4.79 and 6.2. You can install them onrepparttar 134485 same operating system as Internet Explorer.

Other browsers The Opera browser This is often known asrepparttar 134486 “third browser” after Internet Explorer and Netscape. It has received international recognition for being faster, smaller and more standards compliant than other browsers.

Kmeleon This is a simple, efficient, fast browser that loads very quickly. This is because it is an unbloated browser. If your web site looks good in this browser, it will look fine in Netscape.

Leave Those Links Blue!

Written by Jamie Kiley


Don't mess with those links! When you're designing your site, you should leave your text links in their natural state--blue and underlined. We all want to be creative and not dorepparttar bland, expected, normal thing. We want to change our links to red, green, yellow, even black--anything but blue. And we haverepparttar 134473 urge to take off those underlines.

Resistrepparttar 134474 temptation. It's hard. But there's a good reason to leave them alone.

Fromrepparttar 134475 earliest days ofrepparttar 134476 web, text links have been blue. People intuitively recognize that blue, underlined text is a link. They know they can click on it.

The combination of blue and underlines means "If I click on this, it goes somewhere". We're conditioned to recognize those distinguishing characteristics. We're like Pavlov's dogs--we seerepparttar 134477 link and instantly know what it means. There's no time wasted in trying to figure out whether or not that particular word or phrase is clickable.

If you mess withrepparttar 134478 natural appearance of a link, you lose that instant recognition. People have to stop and think (and often click) to figure out what your colors mean. I have watched countless people try to navigate websites and spend half their time figuring out what's a link and what's not. They have no way of knowing.

In addition, people scan a page for links. They like to be active onrepparttar 134479 internet, and they like to know what they can do. When they recognize a link in your copy, it's a clear signal of someplace to go. Visitors want to know what their options are. It's not a good idea to make life difficult. They'll appreciate coming across a site that's easy to use and doesn't try to confuse them (for once!).

It is becoming more acceptable to use other colors for your text links, as long as they remain underlined. But if you can, it's still best to use blue. This is because so many people use underlined, colored text on their sites that is NOT linked. Visitors have a tendency to get confused. They never know what to expect. With blue, it's obvious.

Some people have brought uprepparttar 134480 point that if we stick torepparttar 134481 status quo, there will never be any improvements inrepparttar 134482 system.

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