Implementation: Usability
Usability is the key to evaluation. You need to know about a user's experience with searching and browsing your website. How successful were users in accomplishing their goal?
The ISO standard 9241-11 focuses on usability evaluation and measurements.
Aesthetics focuses on whether the website experience was positive in terms of visual, auditory, and other aspects that impact positive attitudes.
Perceived usability asks users how well the website met their needs.
Although there are many resources on web usability, Jakob Nielsen's book Designing Web Usability along with his website called Useit are probably the best-known and most popular. This website provides guidelines for website design and usability.
Evaluating Information Retrieval
Evaluating the information retrieval aspect of your website can be a challenge. You can use data generated from your website such as statistics and logs, but to get the whole picture you'll need to ask patrons about their experiences.
Statistics such as the precision and completeness of the search can be measured using statistics from your website. For example, how accurate were the search results? Automated statistics can only go so far in determining whether a patron felt their search was relevant.
The search log can also be analyzed to determine where users had difficulty in their searches.
Many users may browse the website, so it's important to collect information from those people who used both search tools and other types of navigation such as indexes and directories.
Evaluating Structure
After spending days, months, or years working on your website, you could find pages in your sleep. Most of your users are not that familiar with your site. Is the structure and organization of materials effective in meeting the needs of your users?
Ask the following questions:
- Does the structure of the site meet the user needs?
- What are the specific tasks or content a user needs? Are these available?
- Does the structure support access to content?
Evaluating Grouping
When you design a website, you identify logical ways of grouping information. As you begin testing your website with users, you may need to reconsider how information is grouped or how people move between sets of information. When designing materials, some people even use cards and ask people to categorize information and see if the concensus of the group matches how information is organized on the website. For example, you might place information about citing Internet resources in the policy section of your library website. However, when asked where they would look for citation information, they might say the research paper section. Will you move the content or add an additional cross-reference link?
Ask the following questions:
- How effective are groups of content objects?
- How are different sections of your website being use?
- Do people find what they think they'll find in different areas of the website.
Evaluating Labeling
People rely on the title of the page, categories, headings, and words on buttons to make choices. Words can have a variety of meanings. Evaluate the labeling of your website by determining if the labels or icons you provide are effective and efficient or problematic. For example, if you provide an icon representing a question mark, book, or house, what will patrons think these visuals mean? When you use the word, home, main menu, or index, what do users think these words mean?
Read Why you Need to Test Your Web Site with Real Users. Think about some of the ways you can conduct usability tests on your website.
Read Test Users, Test Hypotheses by Avi Soudack at Boxes and Arrows.