10 Tips for Testing Your Website's Design

You have finally got a website that you can be proud of, but you need to make absolutely sure. You need to make sure that you haven't missed something in the design. The best way to discover your site's usability is through testing. Here are some great thoughts for testing.

1. Create goals

Decide on a series of questions that you want to answer about your website. Your users should be able to navigate the site and find the information that you want them to know. Your sales page needs to be easy to use. Design your testing with a specific problem in mind.


2. Plan realistic tests

For your test groups, you want to have subjects that best fit the real people who are going to be using your site. If you are selling soccer balls, chances are you do not want your testers to be elderly. You will gain the most insight when you are being as realistic as possible.

3. Set up multiple test runs

Do not settle for one group, because the information that they give you may be anomalous. You want to have at least two groups, preferably three, to test your website. When you receive feedback from the first group, make some changes and retest.

4. Be specific with subjective questions

You want to get the subject's opinion about your site, but a simple yes or no answer does you no good. Ask your participants to list what they liked and what they didn't like. You want to get as much information as you can.

5. Keep the test short

You want to be thorough, but you cannot keep your subjects in the room for long periods of time. Create a test that is short and sweet, focused on the answers that you are after. You will gain more participants in your testing with short quizzes.

6. Ask questions in pairs

Ask your testers for a subjective range and then follow that up with a question like, 'why did you choose your answer?' That way, you are getting more detailed information than just a number.

7. Quantify your results

Instead of asking yes or no questions, allow for a range of opinions. Let them rate statements on a scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree. This adds quite a lot more depth than yes or no. You want the flaws of your site to be discovered.

8. Scavenger Hunts

When you ask your test participants to look at your site, give them a task to complete, rather than asking them to explore. Give them incentive to find a 'treasure' within the site or have them perform a task like pretending to buy one of your products.

9. Watch your testers

Don't depend on the results of the surveys that you give test participants. Watch their faces as they try to navigate your site. Do not offer to help, merely observe their frustration.

10. Debrief participants

Follow up your test with a debriefing. Have your test administrators thank each of the participants and compensate them as necessary. You want to be polite and professional, encouraging your users to ask further questions.

Testing a website's viability and usability can be frustrating if you are only receiving weak subjective information. Develop a strong test and you will get the answers you need.

New Premium WordPress Theme by Hacktutors - saaZine

We are announcing new unique WordPress template, saaZine, for the most cheapest price with life time support. saaZine is two column CSS XHTML based template.

saaZine is available with Featured Content Slider, located just below the navigation bar. The content slider is jQuery based with start and stop button to control the animation.

The highlighted Recent News category on main page always attracts the visitor.

The page numbered navigation makes it easy to navigate to post through post.

Comming up widget to list the scheduled posts to bring back the visitors again with interesting posts.

saaZine offers more place to add widget, the Sidebar, the footer and after the end of the posts.

saaZine is currently available in simple brown color. But in future it will be available in Blue and Shaded Black colour as well.

saaZine is available for $32.

Live demo

Color Picker Tool for Web Developers

You have definitely seen the color picker tool in the image and graphic customization software like photoshop. Almost all of the web designer often use photoshop to pick the suitable color for the website. Even I use photoshop to pick the color code for my blog :)

Color picker tool is used to pick the color and it's code. Each and every color have their own unique code to recognize it. Considering such web developer and the person who often use color picker tool in photoshop, I have found similar tool that you don't have to often open photoshop to pick color code.

Instructions

In the Hue section drag the black bar vertically to generate suitable color.

The Swatch bar shows you the final color result that you have chosen.

You can pick the color code from the Hex box.

The main three color Red Green Blue (RGB) appears on the bottom center based on the color that you have chosen.

Choose the color until you satisfied with it and pick the code from the bottom right Hex box.

Drag the cursor from Brightness/Saturation section and choose the suitable color what you like.

You can use this feature at any time you like. Just navigate to top navigation bar and click "Color Picker Tool" to get color code feature:

Now, you don't have to often open photoshop. You can get directly color picker tool from this blog. You'll save your time by picking color from online although, it take time to ope

Get $80 WordPress Premium Magazine Theme for Free By Commenting!

We've released saaZine premium WordPress theme before some days. Today, I've great another great news, You Can Hack Blog has released saaZine magazine Wordpress template yesterday. saaZine magazine featured lots of widgetized regions. This template is currently available in black, brown and white.

Chance to Get Free WordPress premium theme!

saaZine magazine currently costs $80. But You Can Hack blog have organized top commentor contents. Anybody having wordpress blog can participate in this campaign. There will be three winners who’ll get saaZine magazine free with no resell rights and the footer note fixed on the footer of the web template.

You can view the demo of saaZine magazine at http://suraz.elementfx.com. For more information about the features of saaZine. Visit You Can Hack.

Now, you just have to participate and start commenting to get free premium theme which costs of $80. That means you can get $80 by just commenting. Remember there will be total 3 winners where you have more chance to stand on top 3. You can be the winner of the contest, So, what you are looking for? Start commenting on You Can Hack Blog.

Automatically Remove Widget after Visited using CSS

Today I'll teach you, how to show widget only once after viewing it. Your widget will automatically remove after your visitor click the link or image containing in the widget. Your visitor can't see the widget on the second time if they already viewed it. This process can be applied to your each visitors using some HTML and CSS tricks.

First you have to see the DEMO to get clear information about this. You can see the image of New Message on the top of the post in this blog. Note: If you already clicked that image then, it may not visible. To make it visible, clear the cookie of your browser or open your alternative browser.


So, you found it cool? You can apply this unique HTML / CSS tricks to your website or blog. Follow the following steps:

1. In you HTML file, find the DIV code of the widget which you want to use this trick.

2. Copy the ID of the DIV widget. It may be something like this, yourid">

3. Now, in your Style section, use the following CSS code:

#yourid a:visited {
display:none;
}

Replace yourid with your DIV id. Now, view your blog or website!

Example

Let me show you an example of this work. Suppose I have the following DIV code:

image">

In the above example, I have the image with link between the image DIV code. Now, I apply the following CSS code in my CSS section:

#image a:visited {
display:none;
}

Now, the result may looks like this,




Click the image above and refresh this page, you may not see the image in second time. Finally you're done.

How it Worked?

The CSS tag a:visited can be recognized as the visited link, image or anything that consists on specific widget. With the help of a:visited and display:none; tag, the hole widget removed after any person view or click the link containing on the widget.

display:none; tag hides the contents of the widget. If there is no a:visited tag, your widget will not visible in the first time even someone haven't visited already.

So, this was the unique trick to hide the widget after the first click or view of each individual visitor of your blog / website. This may be helpful if you are regular web designer or blogger. You can think yourself how you can use this trick in your work.

I'll be coming soon with the post How to use this trick on blogspot blogger blogs. Till then, Don't forget to show me your work here :)

Do you have a HTML / CSS trick like this? Share with us!