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4 Free Tools to Test Your Church Website's Usability

MonOct172011 PostedMonday, October 17, 2011 @ 9 AMByBryan YoungTaggedUser Experience (UX)

As the administrator of your church website, you are not the best evaluator of its usability. You live and breathe the website every day. You know exactly what information each page contains, where they live on the site, and the fastest way to get there. Since you know so much about your site, you need real users and fresh eyes to tell you if your user experience is positive or negative.

Here are four free and easy-to-implement tools that will give you insights on your website's user experience from real, unbiased sources (actual website visitors).

1. SeeVolution

What it does
Heat maps show where visitors click and scroll; provides basic pageview analytics

What you get

Tool use for up to 200 users on one domain
7 days of data

How it's helpful
You can use the click heat maps to see where people are clicking (or not clicking), giving you insight on what's getting user attention and what needs help. Scroll heat maps show you if your users are finding the information you put below the fold and if you should move the important info up. Basic pageview statistics give you a peak at traffic without the complexity of Google Analytics. Visit SeeVolution.com >

2. FiveSecondTest

What it does
Upload images of your web pages and ask questions about them to users from FST's database or the general public

What you get for free

Public tests
No priority as to how they're assigned to testers
Create tests to get more tests

How it's helpful
Users see a web page for 5 seconds and then answer questions about first impressions, design, and trustworthiness. These tests are a good way to gauge your home or landing pages' effectiveness at wowing a first-time visitor. Visit FiveSecondTest.com >

3. Userfly

What it does
Set up tasks for users to complete on your website and then watch recordings of the tests

What you get for free

10 screen capture recordings per month
Recordings stored for 30 days
You have to recruit testers, however

How it's helpful
Allows you to see if your website is easy to navigate, use, and find information from real users. Gives you an easy way to set up user testing without buying screen capture software or paying a company to
hold testing for you. Visit Userfly.com >

4. Polldaddy

What it does
Lets you create polls and surveys to ask your website visitors; provides an embeddable user ratings system for you website's blogs, videos, and other content

What you get for free

200 survey responses per month
10 questions per survey
basic reports
surveys contain Polldaddy links

How it's helpful
You can get valuable user feedback about your website from surveys that you link to or pop-up from your site. Ask about the helpfulness of your content is, the relevance of your information, and ease of your navigation. The ratings system provided allows visitors to tell you how much they like your content by giving it five stars, or one stars--giving you immediate feedback on if you're providing what your users
want and like. Visit Polldaddy.com >