Advent Web Solutions, We offer Usability

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We place usability at the heart of our design approach. However, unlike many web development companies, we do not see it as rocket science.

Good usability testing does not need to be complicated or use fancy usability labs with expensive tools or large numbers of test subjects to be effective. All you need is some common sense and a few people to ask questions.

These are the methods we use to ensure your websites are usable.

Heuristic Testing

Heuristic testing is a big fancy term for a little bit of common sense. Heuristic testing involves having a list of common sense check points of which we test every website we produce. Having this simple list ensures every website we produce is up to standard.

Usability Testing

Usability testing is exactly what it sounds like - testing websites to make sure they are easy to use. This process doesn't need to be drawn out or be hugely expensive, either. If you keep usability testing simple, then you are more likely to do it and do it more often.

Testing with lots of people can cost lots of money, however Jakob Neilsen (the world-renowned usability geek/guru) showed that you only need to test five people in order to catch 85% of problems.

As for fancy usability testing with two-way mirrors and cameras watching the users' every move, we believe if you are going to test how people are using a website, the best place to do it is in the environment they would normally use the web.

Card sorting

Card sorting is one of the simplest and most powerful ways of improving a website's information architecture. It is valuable because it gives an insight to what the users are thinking and demonstrates how they sort and structure information within their own heads.