Posts Tagged ‘website usability test’

Website Usability Test – Hard to Believe Results of the Israel Internet Association Web Site (ISOC-IL)

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

I didn’t plan on testing the Israeli ISOC website. All I wanted to do was sign up for a conference. I received an error message that I have to enter the system.

The problem is that there aren’t any instructions on how to do this.

Israel ISOC Internet site

Israel ISOC Internet site has serious usability issues

Unfortunately there is no phone number or other contact info available for me to sign up offline.

I am a resourceful website user and eventually found a tiny contact us link at the bottom of the page. It linked to a page with phone numbers. The automated answering machine didn’t give me good choices but luckily I found the right person.

She knew about the bug.

I can understand not having enough resources to fix a bug. But I can’t understand why they didn’t leave a more helpful message – with contact info so people can sign up offline.

Website Usability Test – Lessons Learned

  • Always check your forms and try to break them.
  • When a bug is found – immediately update error messages so people are not left high and dry
  • Fix bug as soon as possible. If it is not worth it to fix the bug make sure your error message is effective.

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Website Usability Test of New York Hotel

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

In difficult economic times, conversion optimization becomes more important. Usability testing is the most important tool for increasing conversions in most cases. Make sure you are doing them frequently.

You will be surprised by reviewing this usability test. Since we can’t post tests we do for our clients, the following is an unsolicited review.

Here is what we found in out New York hotel Usability Test:

  • There was so much stuff on the reservation page that you couldn’t see the form without scrolling.
  • The popup window with more information could not be closed
  • There was no link to a contact page on most pages on the website

Is it any wonder that people complain that there are not enough conversions?

The popup window on the right can’t be closed due to the fact that the close icon is hidden by the scroll bar. It also blocks the phone number on the top right so the average web user is stuck and the hotel succeeds in annoying the web site visitor.

More about usability testing >>

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