Usability: Steve Krug’s testing tips you want to use

“Usability is a measure of the quality of a person’s experience in interacting with content or services.”

All website designers aim for high-quality usability, but every site has issues says Steve Krug to an audience of 300+ at the November 17^th Boston PHP Meetup in the Microsoft N.E.R.D center.

Follow along with footage of Krug’s presentation from the Meetup.

A website difficult to navigate loses an audience; greater usability equals greater success.

Fortunately, there are tests you can do to enhance the usability of your website.  Run these easy-to-do tests to increase your site’s usability.

Test usability

• Have rounds of  3 people examine and critique your site
  • Make it a spectator sport
• Use Krug’s usability test script
• Get feedback on ideas in their rawest form (e.g. a napkin sketch)
• “Recruit loosely, and grade on a curve”
  • When choosing users to test your site, use people with web browser experience
  • You do not have to pick the ideal user as a tester
• Test your page monthly
  • Makes fixing site more manageable
• Test your competitor’s sites
• Start testing earlier than you think makes sense: the sooner, the better
• Record your testing so you can look back on it

Enhance usability

• Focus on the smallest number of most important problems
• Focus on the issues users have the most trouble with
• Work on the issues that you have the capability to handle and fix
• It’s more likely there’s too much on your site getting in the way, than too little
  • Simplify your site
• Don’t redesign, make corrections
  • “I’ve never seen a redesign that worked”- Krug
  • Focus on fixing observed problems

Usability testing is easy, cheap, and one of the best things you can do for your website.  Use Steve Krug’s wise words as you work on increasing the usability of your website.

For more information, Steve Krug’s webpage and books — Rocket Surgery Made Easy and Don’t Make Me Think — are a “common sense approach to website usability.”