Usability testing has been the flavour of the week, and if you’re as fanatical about this ultra-useful web marketing activity as we are, you’ll consider doing your testing at every one of the following five stages of website development…

  1. Planning stage
    Before you even have a rough idea of what your site will include, do usability tests on your competitors’ sites. If you haven’t already used these sites, you can even use your own team as the test subjects!
  2. Sketch stage
    When you have some rough (but not too rough) sketches on paper, take them to a user sample to see if they make sense, and if the titles are clear enough.
  3. Site design stage
    Once you have the proper design formalised, print out some sample pages and do the same as you did above. Ask your users to explain the navigation.
  4. Prototype stage
    When you have your HTML prototype up, check that your users can get around (as much as is possible) and they understand how to do key tasks
  5. Dress rehearsal stage
    When you have a complete usable version of the site, spend a fair bit of time testing before you finish everything off.
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