Website Evaluation on a Budget

The current economic climate has made it more important than ever for businesses to have a competitive edge. However, budgets are tight and resources are limited. So what to do? Improving the Usability of your website and giving your customers a better User Experience online is one easy way to increase sales and customer satisfaction. You can get great results even with a small budget.

Send out a Survey
You can very easily and cheaply put together a survey asking your existing customers for their feedback on your website, to rate your website against competitors and provide suggestions for extra functionality for your website. There are a number of excellent free surveys available – PollDaddy, SurveyMonkey and SurveyGizmo to name a few. We use ‘Poll Daddy’ for our surveys – check them out at PollDaddy.com (note – polldaddy is an Irish company but their survey software is used globally).

Run Your Own User Tests
Undoubtedly user testing is the most effective way to get insights into the real issues with your website.  Running a user test can be done for very little money if you are willing to put some time and effort into it. Check out our post User Testing in 5 Easy Steps for advice on running your own user tests.

Quick Expert Evaluation
A very fast and inexpensive option is to get a ‘quick & dirty’ expert evaluation of your website. You can hire an expert evaluator to spend 1 hour exploring your website, performing key tasks and outlining the main issues with the site. You will be emailed back a summary of the review along with some suggestions for improvement. UserExperience.ie offers this service – call Fiona on 087-6380841 or email info@userexperience.ie to arrange your quick expert evaluation.