User Experience Research

Additional View conducted a website quality audit and analysis of all Tasmania Council websites over a three day period in February 2009. The objective of the study was to develop a Website Quality Index™ and benchmark comparison of Tasmania Council websites based on a set of defined standards in three vital areas - Accessibility, Usability and Search Engine Optimisation.

Methodology

To ensure the analysis was conducted based on a high level of objectivity a number of professional standards were chosen to effectively measure and compare each of the websites in the areas of Accessibility, Usability and Search Engine Optimisation.

Accessibility

Website accessibility was measured using the W3C Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to the WCAG 1.0A and WCAG 1.0AA level of accessibility compliance. This standard was chosen based on the recommendation provided by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and to comply with recommendations for website communications detailed in the Australian Disability Discrimination Act.

Usability

The usability guidelines from which an heuristic review was conducted were based on those set of detailed criteria generated by Usability.gov and W3C standards. The usability.gov guidelines provide one of the worlds most robust and comprehensive set of usability and user behaviour standards. These usability standards were developed from usability research and have undergone thorough analysis by usability experts and industry panels. Usability guidelines are constantly reviewed and updated based on the latest published research and user experience knowledge. The study considered the W3C best practice for constructing usable websites and the readability of websites based on content and structure.

Google now gives the power to website users to remove bad websites from the search results and reward those they find useful by pushing them up the list for their own search results.

Known as Google searchWiki, Google users will have the power to customise their own search results by deleting, re-ranking and commenting on search results.

For businesses and organisation who are wondering what this will mean for their website, customers who use search are able to remove websites from their own search results if they feel the site isn’t relevant or simply doesn’t come up to scratch. These changes will be remembered by Google and the next time a Google user searches for the same thing their customised search results will be shown.

At the moment Google have announced this service is only available for Google signed in users. If you have signed up for a Google account you can always check by noting if your username is visible in the upper right hand side of your Google page.

Businesses and Organsiations need to take note, because the more users who have a Google account the more important it will be to make sure the initial search results for your website are relevant and correct, and the actual website experience is of great enough value that you will not be deleted or pushed down the list.

Since 2005 AdditionalView has been creating websites which are focused on the user experience. We have shown business and organisations the importance of designing and building websites which are usable, useful and are built on a sound website marketing strategy. This has now become so much more important and to survive website owners really need to step back and get to know their website users.