WordPress Website Design Projects: Six Fundamentals of Usability Testing

Even if your WordPress site is ridiculously good looking, you still must consider how the designs are going to impact the experience of users from a usability point of view. After all, it does not matter how great a WordPress site appears if no one is able to make heads or tails out of its intended function. Here are six fundamentals of usability testing when you hire a web designer:

Ease of Learning

Visitors ought to have the ability to quickly learn the basics of a website. That is to say, what will every button do? If it will require you to log in or register to access crucial functions, are those options located easily?

All these factors become harder to test for as the functions of a WordPress project multiply, yet one thing will remain true at any scale – if the website possesses a steep learning curve, you may scare off users.

Intuitive Navigation

This one is self-explanatory. A user should not require a compass and a map to successfully navigate the site and locate the details they are searching for.

For example, take the Elegant Themes Blog. Quite the handsome little devil, right? Self-promotion aside, this blog happens to offer an excellent example of an intuitive navigational layout. All the website’s primary sections are available upon a visible top bar, correctly labeled, with a distinct call to action, highlighted because of the contrast in colors.

Efficiency of Use

The factor wills tie into the other ones we have thus covered. If the WordPress project is easy to navigate and easy to use, it probably is very efficient overall.

Brand Perception

Brand perception as it’ll relate to usability will refer to a couple of things: whether the project is correctly branded, so visitors may make a relation between the quality of the content and the overall brand, and what types of feelings they relate to it.

Testing for brand perception will not necessarily assist you in revitalizing a brand with negative relations, yet it’ll inform you whether or not you are doing things correctly.

Attention Levels

While testing for attention levels, you are going to be concentrating on what parts of the designs attract the attention of participants, and how long they’ll hold it for. The information is helpful as it’ll come to deciding which particular areas attract more attention, and whether it fits the most crucial functions of the website.

Participant Selection

As it’ll come to participant selection for usability testing, there will include two criteria you must consider. The first includes basic demographic information –country, gender, income, and age, for instance – narrowed down to match your key user groups. Whether they’re middle-aged male accountants, or elderly women who break-dance for dimes is up to you to decide – that ought to be simple if you have any type of analytics solution upon your WordPress website.