Archive for December, 2010

I’m the new Internet Marketing guy!

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

Hello everyone!

I’m the new Online Marketing Executive for 360innovate.  If you keep up to date with our blogs, you will probably already know that I take a terrible picture and look like a vampire version of Spud from Trainspotting – I personally blame the camera angle! 

Anyway, I have been here for nearly two weeks and this is my first job in the city centre, which has its pros and its cons.  On the plus side, the choices of places to eat is amazing, Gerry, our Project Director, tipped me off about a cracking wee Mexican place that offers Burritos, Tacos and all other things Mexican.  The only negative thing I have to say is that the freezing cold conditions has made it terrible to get into work – I suppose this is the same everywhere though.  I look forward to the summer weather when I can relax on the train and read a book without having the dreaded tanoid announcement saying that you have to get off because of point failure – you’re on your own now people!  

The guys at 360innovate have been amazing and really welcoming.  My first impression of 360innovate is that they are a vibrant, forward thinking company that really care about their staff.   They are a focused company, but still allow enough room for their staff to be innovative and creative.  What I also love about here is how the projects are managed, everyone has their own specific discipline and our Project Director is here to bring everything together and make sure everything is going to plan. There is also a strong focus on teamwork, and although everyone has their own specific discipline to deal with, we are always encouraged to share knowledge and have an understanding of what everyone else in the office does. 

My first few days consisted of getting me up to speed with some of our clients, mainly by researching and bugging Andrew with question after question – he has the patience of a saint to put up with me – thanks Andrew!   As well as that I have been doing analytics reports which involves researching how our internet marketing clients are performing on the search engines, creating bar graphs, line charts, pie charts and writing reports to show these results.  Gerry asked me how I was getting on with these reports – I told him that I actually quite enjoy analysing data.  To which he replies “Geek”.  Only moments after, he asked John how he was getting on reconfiguring a clients backend* – who’s the geek now!?  I have also been working on increasing 360innovates exposure to the search engines for the search phrase internet marketing glasgow.  There has already been some success and it’s something I will continue to work on.

As well as internet marketing, I enjoy gardening, various sports and new technology.  

Lunch time already!  The mornings are really flying in.  I’m off to get something to eat – all this talk of pie charts has made me think about paying the bakers a visit, either that or I might go for some delicious Mexican Grub!  I’ll flip a coin. 

 *backend:  Behind the scene operations of a website.

Usability Testing: What it is, what it isn’t

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Usability testing is an important part of the web development process, but it’s also one of the least-well understood. Very often we see misconceptions about what usability testing is, and what it isn’t.

This blog post will hopefully provide a primer on how you should be using usability testing.

One of the most important concepts in usability testing is that it should focus on how easily the user can complete a given task.

These tasks should be clearly defined from the outset of the project, and should be the key actions that you want your users to be able to perform. For example, this might be:

  • Filling in a contact form
  • Finding essential contact information
  • Completing a purchase

It’s essential that we know from the outset what the goals for your website will be; this allows us to create appropriate calls to action and a design that is consistent with these goals.

When testing how well users complete these goals, there are four criteria used to judge the success of the test:

  • Performance: How long did it take the user to complete the task? How many steps did it take?
  • Accuracy: Did the user make mistakes in the process? If they did, were they able to recover from them?
  • Recall: Could the user remember how to complete the task afterwards? Will they remember how to do it in the future?
  • Emotional response: How did the user feel on completing the task? Stressed? Relieved? Comfortable?

Depending on your budget, there are various methods for implementing usability testing.

Hallway Testing

The least expensive option is hallway testing, where people unconnected with the project are asked to complete tasks, as specified above. The advantage of this method is its cost. This method is also called “hallway intercept testing” – literally stopping people in the hallway and asking for their help!

The disadvantage of this method is that it doesn’t necessarily provide a good cross-section of the group that will be using the site. It’s an informal method, and the familiarity of the user and the person conducting the tests could influence the outcome of the tests.

Remote Testing

Remote testing involves the use of specially set up online surveys to test the usability of a site or application. One such service, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, offers a cost-effective method of testing your site with a wide variety of users.

Although more expensive than hallway testing, this method offers a more formal testing structure, and encourages a goal-centred approach. With Mechanical Turk, you can also choose to reject submitted results if you feel the quality of feedback is not good enough.

Expert Review

The third, and (by far!) most expensive option is expert review. This involves working with a specialist usability testing company to provide in-depth analysis for the goals listed above. 360innovate work with a number of these companies, and can suggest one that is suitable for your needs.

Usability testing: what it’s not

The most common problem we see with usability testing is that it is performed without goals in mind, or that the goals are not clearly defined at the start of the project. In effect, test subjects are being asked “what do you think of this site”?

This is very definitely  not usability testing. Unless you relate feedback to the original goals of the project, it’s very unlikely that you’ll get useful feedback on the success of the project. You might get some useful information for future development, but you won’t get useful feedback on the success of what you’ve built.

In short, you should know what the goals of the project are before the first the first line of code is written, and you should be testing how well each task relating to a goal has been implemented.

Why should I bother at all?

Usability testing is a vital tool to judge the success of a project. The internet is awash with stories emphasising the importance of usability testing, and the real question is “can you afford not to perform usability testing?”

Please get in touch if you’d like to talk about what usability testing can do for you.