By David Alison

Like many web-centric companies our web site is our primary window into the world. Its the first impression most people will ever get of SharedStatus and it serves a critical role in our business model. Though you can iterate over a design and show internal people, its not until you get it into the hands of outsiders that you start to see what works and what doesnt.

Having a decent software analytics package like Clicky or Google Analytics installed gives you a sense of what people are doing when they visit your site; where they go, how long they spend on key pages, where they exit your site, etc. Use the analytics and perform basic A/B tests on pages and you can dramatically improve traffic flows on your site. The challenge is guessing where people are tripping up so you can design your A/B tests - this is where usability testing can help.

Usability Testing was hard
For many years I worked in technology companies that had usability labs to help validate product designs. In the early days this involved dedicated lab space, video cameras, recording equipment and extraordinary amounts of time to do correctly. We would set up our tests and then have to go out and recruit people to come in and walk through our products. Putting together the reports and editing the video into a single selection of feedback was incredibly time consuming.

Usability testing was clearly for large companies that had the resources to pull this off.

Usability Testing is easy
Not long after...