Know and improve the experience your website has to offer.

Your website's success is largely determined by aspects of user friendliness and website effectiveness, also known as "usability." A high level of usability increases the extent to which your visitors find what they are looking for and ultimately buy your products or request your services. So, what shape is your website in with regards to usability?

In order to assess your website's usability, you have to find out whether the total user experience you offer contributes sufficiently to the satisfaction of your customers and, as a result, an increase in sales. By measuring these aspects and putting this knowledge to use, MetrixLab's iLAB© can tell you exactly how to improve your website's usability.

New! Usability App Testing for smartphone, Iphone and Ipad

App Testing   

Outline

iLAB© is designed to test your website in terms of usability at any stage of development. Our in-depth qualitative research method is set up to assess and improve the online experience you are offering. It generates knowledge on the perception of its main target audience in one or more key markets and will result in actionable recommendations for improvement on your website.

Tests are usually conducted in one of our test facilities in a one-on-one situation, as target-group participants are asked to use your website and perform realistic tasks in the course of their visit. We observe the participants during their test and judging by their performance, their answers and our observations, we determine the overall user experience of your website and the level of satisfaction its use generates. In addition, we identify usability problems and report to you when, where, and why they occur.

Methodology and setup

Based on observation of your website, your own input and other relevant information, MetrixLab creates a test script with various tasks and questions. Along with your concrete research questions, the following subjects are addressed during a test:

• Concept of the website
• Content (text, style and linguistic usage)
• Navigation (structure, menus and hyperlinks)
• Layout and presentation
• Flow (findability and information hierarchy)
• Conversion and conversion improvement possibilities
• Interaction (forms, applications, search within the site)

Participants in the test are generally drawn from MetrixLab's extensive database, which contains "regular" consumers and business participants. Usually, about eight users participate in a test. Research has proven that this is sufficient to find as much as 90% of the usability problems of your site. If the diversity or complexity of the target group calls for it, or in case of more than one target group, more participants can be tested. And indeed, any remaining usability problem kept undetected by the participants will be discovered by our usability experts.

MetrixLab strongly recommends developers, programmers and others involved in the project to attend one or more tests. After all, it is much more convincing to see problems occur than to read about them in a report. For your convenience, all tests will be recorded on DVD, with the consent of the participants (for internal purposes only).

Our test labs

MetrixLab has its own Usability Labs in which one-on-one testing takes place. Set up with computers (with Internet connection), webcams, video equipment, a one-way mirror, multiple television screens and a projector, the lab ensures a perfect view on all the participants' actions without disturbing them or interfering with the test.

Furthermore, MetrixLab has various mobile test facilities available for testing in any desired location, suited for testing an intranet or under conditions with either time or location restrictions. These facilities hold all the equipment needed to conduct successful usability studies and resemble the setup and facilities of our Usability Labs.

MetrixLab's new test labs are considered to be the most modern European-wide and can be found in MetrixLab’s head office in Rotterdam. With its mobile lab and extensive research possibilities for in-home testing, MetrixLab genuinely offers a complete package of research methods, techniques and instruments. For instance, the labs are equipped not only with eye-tracking facilities (by Tobii), but also with streaming video. This feature enables clients to follow every step of testing from anywhere around the world. View the video

International Usability Testing

For testing in other countries, MetrixLab has access to several test facilities, either via our offices in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain, or via our trusted partners in any other country in the world. All test facilities resemble the setup of our own test facilities. In case of testing abroad, every single test facility is handed exactly the same instructions and reporting template, drawn up by our own test coordinator. All reporting templates are later merged to an integral report with overall results including cross-cultural differences, as well as differentiated results for each country.

What is more, every test abroad is conducted by a MetrixLab researcher or by reliable and native-speaking local moderators under the supervision of one of our experts.

Your benefits

With iLAB©, we provide you with the best research experts and controlled conditions to measure your website's usability. MetrixLab offers you

• high-quality reports that contain our research observations in terms of user experience and effectiveness. This information includes a detailed description of usability problems that surfaced in the test, followed by actionable recommendations to solve these problems. Reports are presented with the possibility to discuss the test results with the researchers.
• pan-European and worldwide testing of your website in identical conditions, providing you with a detailed view of the overall user experience in numerous countries and markets, including cross-cultural differences.
• a detailed description of the variety of usability problems in specific countries for internationally oriented research. As we record all testing, DVD copies of each test session in every single country will be at your disposal.
• an invitation to attend the actual testing in the comfort of our well-equipped observation rooms because observing a test yourself is more convincing than reading about its results in a report.
• a research method apt to test websites, software applications, intranet, electronic equipment and various other products.
• a relatively short runtime, from the recruitment of participants to the delivery of the report, depending on your needs and research goals.

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