User Centred Design
It’s always a good idea to test your website out before you release it to the public, but an even better time to test it is day one of development. User Centered Design is just that, but it doesn’t stop on day one. It’s an ongoing process throughout the development of your site.
Well Worth the Time
Testing your site throughout the development does take more time, and money. Rebuilding a site, and potentially loosing a customer share will most likely cost you more though. If you plan on marketing your site, I would strongly suggest not spending dime one, until you have conducted some test. What’s the point of marketing a poorly designed site that the visitors hate?
By doing things the UCD way, many negative issues that may have occurred later on are already figured out. You may even find strong selling points about your site, that you can now give extra emphasis to bringing your site to the top faster.
Not Everyone Tests
Your advantage to the millions of other websites out there is that most webmasters don’t even bother to test their target audience on how they like their site. Having a site where you know your audience loves will only make your numbers go up, and make your marketing guys your best friends.
This article was written for Temi by Rob Campbell of Best Web Image. Rob is a usability and web design consultant. You can contact Rob via the contact page on Best Web Image. You can discuss this article and other web design related issues at UK Webmaster Forum .