My Halloween website is nearly complete; the pages have been written out, designed, and posted (sans the remaining spooky food recipe pages that need typing up), and the usability testing has been done. The next step before going public is to look over the testing data and see what I need to change, take out, or add based on what my testers said.
A Brief Summary
I chose four friends to test my site on because I felt more comfortable asking friends than complete strangers. This made meeting up to actually do the test relatively easy; we either did it at my house, or at one of their houses on a Saturday hang out night. During the latter, I tested them individually for more conclusive data.
Initial response was positive, especially when it came to the design and layout of the site. One friend who is a software engineer for web-based business applications was very happy with the easy and well-organized navigation. Other friends enjoyed the interactive elements, such as the slide shows and the quiz on the home page. When asked to do a task, such as find the page you would click on if you wanted to plan a party, or find the materials needed to make Chocolate Truffle Mice, completed it without a problem.
At the end of the test, I asked the testers two important questions.
- Would you come back to this site?
- Do you have any suggestions for other pages you would like to see on the site?
All the testers said yes to the first question. More specifically, they said they would come back during the Halloween season. One tester said that if he were more interested in what the site offered he would definitely come back.
For the second question, most said they would like to see more subpages for the party planning page. Costume ideas, theme suggestions, and party games were suggested.
Based on this information, I plan on adding another page under Party Planning by the end of the week, and more in the future. If I were to do usability testing in the future, I would modify my approach by testing a larger group.
