Even my grandma can improve your website!
No seriously, she can. Your own grandmother can probably improve your website as well. Ok, she might not be able to get those 12.000 pages filled with scraped content out of supplemental hell, but she absolutely can help you improve your usability.
Have you ever watched your non web savvy friend, colleague or relative searching for stuff or navigating through a web shop? Almost every time I see an internet noob clicking on wrong links in a very unstructured way, I can barely suppress the feeling of saying ‘move over’ and doing it myself. In stead, I usually let them fool around and learn from their behaviour. Keep in mind that 99,9% of all people probably aren’t as web savvy as you are.
This is why your grandma (or every other person you know that isn’t either a Google AdWords Professional or a Stumble God) can help you to improve your website and -especially- your conversion rate. Let a non tech person find his or her way through your oh-so well designed conversion driven navigation path and see where he or she drops off.
Is it the ‘Buy now’ button that looks like a ‘Bugger off’ button if you happen to be a bit long-sighted? Are your breadcrumbs causing more frowning eyebrows than satisfied smiles? Or do most of your visitors feel that filling in your checkout registration form is like filling in their last will? Visit your grandma, bring your laptop and find out!
RSS ?
9 comments on this post
I think Grandma would hate to have to scroll half way down your page to reach any content. ;)
“Keep in mind that 99,9% of all people probably isn’t as web savvy as you are.”
Should be
“Keep in mind that 99,9% of all people probably aren’t as web savvy as you are.”
Douglas; you’ve got a point there.
Grammarnazi; Fixed ;)
It is not only your Grandma, it is nearly 99% of all of your visitors. I absolutely agree with you.
It is true, they can help with general issues. Just ask them to come over and try to find something on the site and if they cant find it in 20secs, your site is too hard to navigate through.
I agree, too many people try to be clever with their site and ignore the fact that at the end of the day it is all about usability. As most users are not tech savvy sites need to be geared that way
I completely agree, a well laid out and newbie friendly website can be just as effective as a website with a top Google pagerank. You may get less traffic but you will utilise all of your traffic, not just the web savvy portion of it.
yes, user testing is as necessary as cross browser testing but often is neglected. this is more important for certain niches then others such as a tech blog vs a dog store where the dog store will have a less knowledgeable audience.
Can’t agree more. User testing on “actual” users is priceless!
Reminds me that I need to get rolling with that, any tips?
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