Web Design - The Complete Reference: Chapter 5: Evaluating Web Sites

Conducting an Evaluation

When starting an evaluation, it is important to stop and record some basic information. For example, note the URL of the site you are to evaluate, the date, the time, the person conducting the evaluation, and the reason for the evaluation. When you begin the evaluation, you should block out some time to do the evaluation continuously; otherwise, your impressions could be adversely affected. Consider recording your end time to get an idea of how long it took to reach your conclusions. In general, the evaluation will be broken into the following steps:

First impression
Home page pretesting
Sub-page pretesting
Navigation pretesting
Task analysis
Execution Analysis
Final Impression

When we have finished with the evaluation, any required supplementary materials should be prepared, and an evaluation summary developed. Appendix B provides a sample form for conducting a site evaluation. Reading the following sections will help you understand the motivation for the various tests and how to conduct them.

Next: First Impression

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