Usability testing is something you should never ignore when creating a website. It’s not something you should try doing – you need to do it to make sure your website is functioning and converting well. Usability testing can help you figure out where to focus your time and resources, preventing your efforts from going to waste.

(image from Unic.com Magazine)

The following myths about usability testing often make companies think it’s not worth the effort, and they need to be debunked.

Analytics Have it Covered

Analytics are also an important aspect of website development, but they can only show you what’s happening – they can’t explain why.

A good example of how usability testing can provide information that helps you come up with better conversion solutions is StubHub’s “Go Button” story. StubHub is a website that allows users to buy or sell tickets for different events. By running usability tests, StubHub discovered that their “See Details” buttons on their event pages were preventing people from clicking. Analytics could have told them that the users were abandoning the sales funnel at this point, but only usability testing was able to tell them what was preventing them from moving to the next step.

The information StubHub gathered from usability testing enabled them to come up with an effective solution. They saw an increase in conversions after they replaced the “See Details” buttons with simple “Go” buttons.

It’s Too Expensive

People who think usability testing is “too expensive” just don’t see its actual value. Companies spend a lot of money on expensive “essentials” like insurance and rent, and they need to see that usability testing is just as essential.

Usability testing is also much less expensive than it used to be. You can easily find testing tools and recruit testers online. Without usability testing, you risk wasting valuable resources on building a website that doesn’t deliver the type of user experience you want it to. This can result in even more expenses if you need to change or completely rebuild your website.

There’s No Time to Do It or Implement Changes

You should always make time for usability testing, especially during the earlier stages of development. Finding problems and resolving them during the earlier phases can actually help you save time that you might have wasted on less important bugs or features. Make the most of your time by planning your testing carefully and setting a time limit for running the tests and compiling their results.

When we create websites for our own clients, we make sure to run thorough usability tests to make sure everything is working properly and that your website is providing a great user experience across all browsers and devices. Talk to us to learn more about our web development services today.