Newsletter issue #58 - 5th January 2009
This issue
Happy New Year and welcome to the January 2009 edition of the Webcredible newsletter!
In this issue:
- Feature article: User interviews - analysis simplified
- Top tip: Use a visual explanation to introduce new concepts
- Useful program: GoToMyPC
- Top link: Website Grader
- New articles in December
- Webcredible news in December
Enjoy!
Feature article: User interviews - analysis simplified
You've conducted your user interviews, but it's now time to put all that information that's in your head down on paper, and pull it all together into a complete picture. This article follows on from our previous article which gave tips on how to conduct the interviews themselves. Here we give you some possible techniques to use whilst analysing your interviews, helping mould your results into something tangible.
Top tip: Use a visual explanation to introduce new concepts
More and more websites are springing up with unique propositions and unfamiliar ways of doing things, and it can be difficult to clearly explain a new proposition or site feature to your users. By not explaining new concepts succinctly, you risk visitors not hanging around to find out what your site can do. A step-by-step visual explanation (e.g. LOVEFiLM's DVD rental process explanation) can overcome this issue.
- Tell a linear story in no more than 4 steps Obviously you need to explain your new proposition to your site users, but there are easier ways to do it than on your 'about us' page. Offering a short step-by-step guide to how your site or service works will let users understand it at a glance on your homepage. This will eliminate the risk of them leaving your site due to uncertainty about its proposition.
- Use images and a short text explanation to show each stage You need to use images to highlight each stage of your proposition as they will draw users' attention to the explanation. For example, if part of your service involves posting something to the customer, you could include a picture of a letterbox. Images work well as they allow people to get the idea very quickly. A short text explanation should then be used next to each image to confirm the users' assumptions.
- Provide a link to a page with more detail The step-by-step visual explanation allows people to decide very quickly if your site is of interest, but that's not the be all and end all. Chances are that it will garner interest in your service, but people will want to find out more. You must make it easy for them to do this by providing a clear 'find out more' link from the visual diagram to a page which explains the concepts of each step in more detail.
Useful program: GoToMyPC
Want fast secure access to your PC from anywhere in the world? GoToMyPC lets you remotely access your computer from any other Internet-connected computer through a secure, private connection. Simply download GoToMyPC, login online and access your PC desktop remotely.
Top link: Website Grader
Website Grader is a great tool from HubSpot to measure the marketing effectiveness of your website. Simply type in your URL and you will find out how your website scores out of 100 as well as information like your Google PageRank, blog ranking and number of inbound links.
New articles in December
Read these and many other articles
Webcredible news in December
- Christmas shoppers favour last minute high street shopping
- Online travel webinar recording available
- CSCI case study goes live
- We have a new usability lab hire page
- 2008 utility website usability report available now
Read these news stories in full
Online travel webinar recording
The recording of Webcredible's user experience in online travel webinar is now available on demand to listen to whenever you want to.
Sign up to listen to the recording
Training courses
Come on one of our training courses and become a web guru! Our 18 courses are run across 5 training streams:
- Usability & accessibility courses
- Website optimisation courses
- Online copywriting courses
- Web development courses
- Online marketing courses
Training courses are held every 2 weeks in London and are fantastic - small class sizes, highly interactive and taught by experts.
