Evaluating a Web Site

There is no BEST way to evaluate a web site.

adapted from "Website Design: The Complete Reference"

When starting an evaluation, it is important to stop and record some basic information. For example, note the URL of the site you are to evaluate, the date, the time, the person conducting the evaluation, and the reason for the evaluation. When you begin the evaluation, you should block out some time to do the evaluation continuously; otherwise, your impressions could be adversely affected. Consider recording your end time to get an idea of how long it took to reach your conclusions. In general, the evaluation will be broken into the following steps:

First impression
What do you think of the site when you enter. How does it make you feel.

Home page Testing

Identity Test The first pretest to be conducted could be called the identity test. To conduct this test, look at the home page for between 30 seconds to a minute, and see if you can figure out the organization's name, the topic of the home page, and any sense of what the site is about. It would seem obvious that a site should clearly communicate its goals and purpose right away, but often that just isn't the case

Navigation Pre-Test

The next and probably the most telling is the navigation pretest. In this test, before you use the site, look at the home page and attempt to guess which areas of the screen are clickable. You may consider printing the page and circling the hot spots, conducting what is called a paper test. However, given that many pages may not be designed for printing or will remove navigation features in print, it is best just to do a screen test and run your finger, not the mouse, around the screen trying to determine if something is clickable or not. Once you have evaluated the whole page, go back and check your intuition. You will probably find that some clickable areas of the page do not obviously look like they are for purposes of navigation, while other things that look clickable actually aren't. Common reasons for failure include inconsistent color usage such as using blue text for labels and logos, removing underlines on links, and trying to make images and supporting materials link together. Note the number of believed links and actual links, determine an accuracy ratio, and record any notable problems for your final report.

Sub-page testing

The primary sub-pages of the site—namely, those that are directly accessible from the home page—should be tested using the same tests described for the homepage. However, for the identity pretest, focus more on the purpose of the page than on the organization. The navigation tests should proceed normally. While this may seem like a lot of work for an average size site, it should proceed rather quickly if the sub-pages follow a consistent design and navigation pattern. If they do vary greatly, you are probably facing a site that has a high degree of design and navigation inconsistency and deserves significant analysis.

Navigaton Testing

Overall Once the first layers of the site have been examined, it is time to perform simple tests to probe the quality of the global site navigation. Good sites will provide consistent, well-executed navigation and should provide alternative navigation schemes, such as site maps, indexes, and search engines. First, look to make sure that placement of navigation is consistent from page to page. Subtle shifting may occur, so try browsing the site extremely fast and notice whether the menu items bounce or jump position slightly from page to page. Even this minor variation can break the perceived stability of a site. Next, look to see how robust the navigation is and whether multiple forms of site navigation are supported. Numerous navigation execution questions should be asked during this phase. Is the current location clearly indicated with labels or link path indicators? Does the site have text links at the bottoms of pages? Is alternative text used for graphical navigation buttons? Does the site require excessive scrolling? Are back-to-top links used on longer pages? Does the site have a map or index?

Search Testing Test out the search option if available....does it work reliably as it should.

Task Analysis

Generally, on the Web, users are doing one of three general tasks:

Reading

Looking for something

Performing some interaction

Readability Testing: contrast, length, format, placement issues

Findability Testing: try finding something simple like contact info common on most sites....how easy is it to find and what about finding it from a secondary page. Now try to find something specific to the site like a specific product. Again how easy from main and secondary pages.

Iteractivity Testing: Try filling out forms, etc. How easy to do/understand.

Execution Analysis

Execution testing focuses on trying to make sure the site is built correctly. Execution includes issues with content, visuals, technology, and delivery.

Content, you might look to see if site content is up-to-date or if there are spelling and grammar errors in pages.

Technical execution would focus on whether the site follows standards for HTML, CSS, XML, and other technologies.

Visual execution would be concerned with image quality and file size.

Browser support how does it look/function in different browsers and different resolutions.

Delivery would be focused on speed and server capacity

Final Evaluation

Considering all of above how do you rate the site?

Try this evaluation form from "Web Design The Complete Reference" by T. Powell.