Watching your customers using your website can lead to some shocking realizations about the success of your online presence

Every day, real people visit our websites and try to do real things. Sadly, most organizations have no idea whether or not their online visitors are successful.

We can be pretty certain that people don't want their time wasted on the Internet. If they go to your site and can't quickly and intuitively complete the task that they came to do, then they will get frustrated and leave.

Watching people trying to carry out important tasks on your website is often a harsh wake-up call. You would be amazed at the number of times they fail at their task or simply give up. While nobody sets out to create a site that is frustrating or difficult for visitors to use, it tends to just evolve this way because no one takes the time to watch their customers using their site.

You can buck this trend by carrying out some usability testing, which is simply a fancy way of saying you are going to watch your customers trying to do what they came to your website to do.

Usability testing of websites is a true test of how people actually use a website. A facilitator guides a number of individuals who are new to the site through a series of questions and tasks to see how they interact with the site.

In general, we want to find out whether the user:

• Understands the point of the pages;
• Understands the navigation system;
• Can guess where to find things;
• Can complete their tasks;
• Can find the information they were looking for.

We also want to find out:

• What tasks are difficult for the user to complete;
• Where users get lost;
• What makes sense to them;
• What they like or dislike about the site.

Observing your customers is intrinsic to web success, and it's so basic. It is through observing that you can ensure you create and maintain a website that truly works for your customers.

Emily Amos is a Halifax copywriter specializing in writing for the web. She helps companies convert more people into clients by writing key marketing messages that resonate. See what else she's been up to at www.wordsavvy.ca.