Web Sites: The good, the bad and the ugly

There are good sites, bad sites and sites that are down right ugly to use. Creating a site that works well for your target users (whether B2C or B2B) is a crtical success factor. Frustrated users will go elsewhere and on the Web your main competitor may be just a few clicks away.

Any good Web design should incorporate "good practice" features such as logical and easy navigation, acceptable download times, uncluttered interface displaying relevant information, intelligent data input, one time data entry, fast and responsive links, a good search engine, etc. How though do you know whether what you have designed appeals to the hearts and minds of your customers?

Clickstream analysis (e.g. BizRate), focus groups and (pop-up) useability questionnaires may provide some of the answer but they may not provide the specific information that you need and do not provide a comparative against other sites. Enter "WebCriteria".

WebCriteria have produced "Task Analysis" a product designed to report on a users experience during the performance and completion of specific tasks on a Website. Task Analysis is based on a model derived from useability tests with real surfers and seeks to evaluate behavioural response under certain conditions. It is said to be 79% accurate in reflecting a sites useability as experienced by real users.

The reports produced by Task Analysis identify potential problem areas and through interpretation prompt possible solutions by highlighting those improvements that will incorporate best practice.

Pricing depens on the extent of analysis required and runs from $3.5K for a limited series of test to a full service subscription starting at £30K.

Task Analysis does not, at present, seem to have any direct rivals. The closest competitor is a service provided by Vividence who use panels of surfers to evaluate websites.



	Web Sites: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly There are good sites, bad sites and sites that are down right ugly to use. Creating a site that works well for your target users (whether B2C or B2B) is a crtical success factor. Frustrated users will go elsewhere and on the Web your main competitor may be just a few clicks away. Any good Web design should incorporate "good practice" features such as logical and easy navigation, acceptable download times, uncluttered interface displaying relevant information, intelligent data input, one time data entry, fast and responsive links, a good search engine, etc. How though do you know whether what you have designed appeals to the hearts and minds of your customers? Clickstream analysis (e.g. BizRate), focus groups and (pop-up) useability questionnaires may provide some of the answer but they may not provide the specific information that you need and do not provide a comparative against other sites. Enter "WebCriteria". WebCriteria have produced "Task Analysis" a product designed to report on a users experience during the performance and completion of specific tasks on a Website. Task Analysis is based on a model derived from useability tests with real surfers and seeks to evaluate behavioural response under certain conditions. It is said to be 79% accurate in reflecting a sites useability as experienced by real users. The reports produced by Task Analysis identify potential problem areas and through interpretation prompt possible solutions by highlighting those improvements that will incorporate best practice. Pricing depens on the extent of analysis required and runs from $3.5K for a limited series of test to a full service subscription starting at £30K. Task Analysis does not, at present, seem to have any direct rivals. The closest competitor is a service provided by Vividence who use panels of surfers to evaluate websites.