Usability is a simple idea: can a visitor do what they came to do, quickly and without confusion? A website can look beautiful and still fail that test. A menu label that makes sense to you might mean nothing to a customer. A button that seems obvious on your large monitor might be impossible to find on a phone.
The challenge for any business owner is that you know your website too well. You cannot easily see it the way a stranger does. The checks below are designed to get around that, and each one can be done in a few minutes without special tools.
1. The five-second test
Ask someone who has never seen your site, such as a friend, a neighbour or a family member, to look at your home page for five seconds and then look away. Ask them three questions. What does this business do? Who is it for? What would you do next? If they struggle to answer, your home page is not communicating clearly enough. This one test often reveals more than any amount of staring at the page yourself.
2. The task test
List the three or four things a typical visitor wants to do: find your prices or service list, check your hours, request a quote, book an appointment. Then ask a few people to complete one of those tasks while you watch silently. Do not help them. Notice where they hesitate, where they click the wrong thing and when they give up. Their confusion is the most valuable information you will collect. Three or four people will usually reveal the biggest issues, and the same problems tend to repeat.
3. The phone test
Pick up your own phone and try to complete those same tasks. Can you read the text without zooming? Are the buttons large enough to tap with a thumb? Does a pop-up cover the content? Does the menu open and close properly? Most visitors will see your site on a phone first, so this check is not optional. Try it on both a recent phone and an older one if you can, and on a slower connection. Our guide to website speed and mobile performance explains why loading time matters so much.
4. The menu label test
Read your main menu aloud. Does every label say plainly what is behind it? Clever names like "Our Journey" or "Solutions" make visitors guess. Plain labels like "Services", "About" and "Contact" are faster to understand. If you have more than six or seven top-level items, consider whether some could be grouped. We go deeper on this in our post on website navigation for small businesses.
5. The squint test
Step back from your screen, or squint until the page blurs. What stands out? The most prominent element should be the thing you most want people to notice, usually your main message and your main button. If the biggest, brightest object on the page is a decorative graphic or a banner for something unimportant, the visual priorities need adjusting. Good design guides the eye to what matters.
6. The readability test
Look at your body text. Is it large enough to read comfortably, and does it have enough contrast against the background? Light grey text on a white background looks stylish and is hard to read, especially for older visitors or anyone in bright light. Long paragraphs without breaks are tiring, so check that headings, short paragraphs and lists break up the content. Readability and accessibility are closely linked, and our overview of website accessibility for Nova Scotia businesses covers the basics.
7. The dead end test
Click through every page and ask, at the bottom of each one, "What would I do now?" Every page should point somewhere: to a related page, to a contact option or to the next step. Pages that simply stop leave visitors stranded. Also check for broken links and missing images by clicking every button and link at least once. A few minutes of clicking can catch problems that have been sitting unnoticed for months.
8. The form and contact test
Fill in your own contact form as if you were a customer. Is it short? Does it explain what happens next? Does a confirmation message appear? Does the message actually arrive in your inbox, and does it look right when it does? Then check that your phone number can be tapped on a phone. If you have not tested this recently, you may be surprised. Our guide to contact page design shows what a good enquiry path looks like.
What to do with what you find
You will probably discover more issues than you can fix in a weekend, so rank them. Start with anything that stops a visitor from completing a key task, such as a broken form or an unreadable phone layout. Next, fix anything that causes confusion, like unclear labels or an overloaded home page. Leave cosmetic improvements for later. Make one or two changes at a time, so you can tell what helped.
It also helps to look at real behaviour once you have the basics in place. A free analytics tool will show you which pages people leave most often, and our post on Google Analytics basics explains which few numbers are worth watching. Watching actual visitors, even a handful, beats guessing every time.
Repeat the checks regularly
Usability is not a one-time project. Your business changes, your customers change and the devices they use change. Run through these eight checks a couple of times a year, and whenever you make a significant change to the site. If the problems you find are larger than a few tweaks can solve, our post on signs your website needs a redesign can help you decide what to do next.
If you would like a fresh set of eyes on how your website works for real visitors, you are welcome to get in touch for a free conversation.
