We want to make the internet a nicer and more usable place. By testing, analyzing and improving the usability of websites one by one. But we cannot do this on our own, we need you the internet user to help us!

Buy online airplane tickets.

Traveling should be fun and relaxing. Since more and more people book their flights online the fun and relaxation should start here, but booking tickets online is often difficult and stressing. Errors caused by a bad or unclear user interface can have huge implications, from arriving in the wrong Portland to buying a new return ticket because you selected the wrong return date.

So we thought it was time to put two low cost airline websites to the test in the second Usability Death Match. In a Usability Death Match real users are asked to perform one or more similar tasks on two competing websites. We will publish the results online and give the users of these websites a voice. We use our latest usability testing tool (UserPlus Tester, in beta) that allows users to participate from their homes (or offices).

We need You

We invite you to participate in the second Usability Death Match. By participating in this online user test you get the chance to ventilate your opinion and to show what is good and easy to use and what’s not. Participating in a test with the UserPlus Tester is easy and you can do it where and when it suits you from the comfort of your home. It will take you less then 15 minutes to complete the test.

Register as a participant now and put these websites to the test.

For questions you can always contact us via info@userplus.com

UserPlus wil bijdragen een gebruiksvriendelijker internet. Om deze ambitie kracht bij te zetten en ook de eindgebruikers van websites een stem te geven hielden wij in december de eerste Usability Death Match. Geïnspireerd door de commotie rond de klantvriendelijkheid van call centers besloten we een vergelijkende test op te zetten van de online klantvriendelijkheid van twee Telecom operatoren.
English version

Test Opzet

Om de deelnemers aan de test niet overmatig te belasten besloten we om in de eerste test slechts 2 Telco’s te vergelijken. We vroegen de deelnemers om twee  gelijkaardige taken uit te voeren op de websites van Base en Mobistar:

• Je hebt een factuur ontvangen, er staan echter kosten op die je niet gemaakt hebt. Zoek het telefoonnummer van de klantendienst om deze factuur te laten corrigeren.
• 10 minuten geleden is je verbinding weggevallen en je kunt niet meer bellen. Je weet zeker dat al je facturen betaald zijn. Zoek informatie over hoe je het probleem kunt oplossen.

Tijdens de test werd gemeten hoe lang de deelnemers er over deden, hoeveel mensen in de taak slaagden en hoe tevreden mensen waren over het uitvoeren van de taak.

Via Twitter en Facebook zijn oproepen gelanceerd om deel te nemen aan deze testen, zonder te vermelden welke websites getest werden (zie blog post “Test de Klantendienst“).

Resultaten

Zoekresultaten voor het oplossen van een connectieprobleem op de websites van Mobistar en Base.

Aan de test hebben totaal 18 mensen deelgenomen, de meesten gaven aan “Expert” te zijn op het vlak van internetervaring.De leeftijden varieerden tussen de 40 en 22 jaar.

Slechts 8% van de deelnemers was in staat om informatie over het connectieprobleem te vinden op de Mobistar website, geen van de deelnemers was in staat hetzelfde te doen op de website van Base. Alle deelnemers vonden het telefoonnummer van de klantendienst op de website van Base, slechts 45% vond het telefoonnummer van de Mobistar klantendienst.

Locatie van contact informatie op de websites van Mobistar en Base.

Op de Base website deden gebruikers er gemiddeld 62 seconden over om het telefoonnummer van de klantendienst te vinden. Op de Mobistar website deed men er gemiddeld 88 seconden over.

De gemiddelde tevredenheid over het gebruik van de website van Base was 3 op een schaal van 7. Mobistar scoorde 1,5 op 7 voor tevredenheid.

Conclusies

We kunnen stellen dat het moeilijk zoniet onmogelijk was voor de deelnemers aan deze test om twee (basis) taken op de websites van deze telecom providers te volbrengen.

Ook de online klantenservice kan nog serieus verbeterd worden. Daarnaast kan de druk op de call centres serieus verminderd worden als klanten de oplossing voor hun probleem op de website zouden kunnen vinden. Het lijkt ons dus meer dan de moeite waard om ook de online gebruikservaringen en klantendienst te verbeteren en naar een hoger niveau te tillen.

Wat nu?

UserPlus wil regelmatig nieuwe usability death matchen organiseren om enerzijds het bewustzijn rond usability aan te wakkeren en anderzijds de eindgebruikers een stem te geven in de roep om een gebruiksvriendelijker internet.

Heb je zelf een suggestie voor een te testen onderwerp: stuur een mailtje met je suggestie naar info@userplus.com

Wil je deelnemen aan een van de volgende Usability Death Matchen: schrijf je in als deelnemer  via het Participant form

UserPlus wants to contribute to a user-friendly internet. To achieve this ambition and to give end users of web sites a voice we did our first Usability Death Match in December 2010. Inspired by the commotion (in Belgium) around the customer service offered by call centers, we decided to set up a comparative test of the online customer service of two telco operators.
Nederlandse versie

Test Setup

To limit the burden on the test participants we decided to compare 2 (randomly chosen) Belgian Telco’s. We asked participants to perform two similar tasks on the websites of Mobistar and Base:

• You received an invoice, they charged costs you did not make. Find the telephone number of the customer service to have them correct your invoice.
• 10 minutes ago your mobile connection went down and you are not able to make calls with your mobile phone anymore. You are sure all bills were payed. Find information on the website on how to solve the problem.

During the test we measured how much time participants needed, how many succeeded and how satisfied participants were after performing a task.

We recruited participants via Twitter and Facebook, we did not tell which websites were tested in our posts and tweets (see blog post “Make the internet a usable place“).

Results

Search results for finding a solution to the connection problem on the Base and Mobistar website.

18 users participated in the test, most of them were “expert” internet users. The ages varied between 40 and 22.

Only 8% of the participants found information about the connection problem on the Mobistar website, none of the participants found that information on the Base website. All participants found the contact information on the Base website, only 45% of the participants found the contact info on the Mobistar website.

Location of the contact information on the websites of Base and Mobistar.

Participants needed 62 seconds, in average, to find contact information on the Base website. On the Mobistar website it took them 88 seconden, in average.

The average satisfaction score for using the Base website was 3/7, where Mobistar scored 1,5/7 for satisfaction.

Conclusions

We can state that performing these (basic) tasks on the websites of these Telco’s was very difficult so not impossible.

So not only the call centre customer service can use some improvements, but also the online customer service can still be improved. By improving the online customer service the pressure on the call centers can be limited, if users can find answers to their problems on the website they don’t have to call the call centers. So it seems worthwhile to improve the online customer service and bring it to a higher level.

What’s next?

UserPlus wants to set up Usability Death Matches regularly to improve awareness concerning Usability and to give endusers a voice in creating a more user friendly internet.

Do you want to suggest a website for testing: send an e-mail with your suggestion to info@userplus.com

Do you want to participate in one of the following Usability Death Matches: register as a participant via theParticipant form

Het internet beter maken én music for life steunen?

Door een website test uit te voeren geef je 5€ aan Music for Life. Doe mee met deze korte online test
(vul de form in en je ontvangt binnenkort een e-mail voor je deelname)

Kent u dit?

Iedereen heeft het aleens mee gemaakt. 10-tallen minuten in de wacht aan de telefoon, eindeloos zoeken naar een antwoord via de website, de klantvriendelijkheid van veel bedrijven laat vaak te wensen over.

Klanten in actie!

Youp van ‘t Hek is een kruistocht begonnen tegen T-Mobile na wekenlang van het kastje naar de muur te zijn gestuurd. Peeters & Pichal is ook begonnen met een actie “Neem eens op” om bedrijven aan te sporen hun klantenservice te verbeteren. De maat is vol en gebruikers en klanten trekken ten strijde!

UserPlus voor een gebruiksvriendelijk internet!

Om te testen hoe moeilijk (of makkelijk…) het echt is om klanteninformatie te vinden organiseren wij een vergelijkende test van verschillende websites van telecom operatoren. In deze eerste Usability Death Match vragen we gewone mensen om enkele simpele taken uit te voeren op deze websites via de UserPlus Tester.

Laat je stem horen

Doe mee en laat van je horen. In ruil voor je deelname steunen wij Music for Life!

Deelnemen aan een test is makkelijk en je kunt het doen waar en wanneer je wilt. De test zal niet meer dan 10 minuten in beslag nemen.Schrijf je nu in en je krijgt een e-mail die je rechtstreeks toegang tot de test geeft.

We want to make the internet a nicer and more usable place. By testing, analyzing and improving the usability of websites one by one.

Customer Service

As a customer you bring revenue and if you have questions or problems you should get the help and information you need. Problems that are handled well leave happy customers in the end. The customer service often starts at the website. Customers and users come there to find answers to their questions, solutions for their problems and contact information if they have a specific question.

So we start our mission by analyzing the usability of different customer area’s of telco websites with a user test. We will publish the results online and give the users of these websites a voice. Our latest usability testing tool (UserPlus Tester, in beta) allows website or applications to be be tested by real users without a complicated setup.

We need you(r) (opinion)

By participating in a usability test you get the chance to ventilate your opinion and to show what is good and easy to use and what’s not. In return for your participation we will support Music for Life, so by participating you support 2 good causes at once! Participating in a test with the UserPlus Tester is easy and you can do it where and when it suits you from the comfort of your home. It will take you less then 10 minutes to complete the test.

How can you participate ?
You can join in this test as a participant! Simply fill out the form and you will get an invite with a link that will bring you directly to the test.

Together with our closed beta launch of the UserPlus Tester and a beta group speech on Digital Marketing First, we revamped our site a bit. Hope you enjoy it.

Have you been enjoying the summer from behind your desk? Does your weather widget tell you it is nice and sunny outside? Do you really want to go out and enjoy a drink somewhere on a terrace but you just have to much work?

Go out and let us help you to do your work.
We offer to do your expert evaluations with the UserPlus Advisor. This will help you to spend your time on the stuff that really needs your full attention and maybe have some spare time to go out and treat yourself on a little bit of real sunshine.

If you subscribe for a year to the UserPlus-Pro and send us your screenshots, we will do the expert review (3 screenshots) for you ($125 per extra screenshot). If you send us the screenshots along with your username, we will upload the project to your account so you can share the results within your team and/or your client or continue the project in the future.

So if you want to take us up on this offer just contact us and we will help you enjoy your summer!

To get you started with our online expert review tool (UserPlus Advisor) we will post  a series of articles in the coming weeks. In this article (part 1: Design Phase) we give you some tips on efficient use of the UserPlus Advisor in the design phase of your project life cycle.
Discovering issues and possible problems early in the development cycle is always a good thing for budget and planning. This rule also applies to usability issues. The UserPlus Advisor helps to list all applicable usability requirements (big and small). Thanks to the Advisor checklist you can keep track of them during design and development.

Step 1: Upload your designs

Upload the designs of the different page types in your project. To avoid double work don’t upload pages that are almost identical and serve more or less the same purpose such as different product-detail pages.

Step 2: Annnotate your designs

Annotate (tag) the different unique elements in your design. Only annotate similar elements if they work differently, serve a different purpose or look different. For instance don’t annotate multiple text links, but do annotate a text link and an image link seperately. You can easily drag and drop all relevant items on your visuals.

Step 3: Generate and run your checklist

As a result of your annotations you will get a checklist with usability requirements for your design. You probably won’t be able to answer all questions in this (early) stage. E.g.: since you are working with dummy text answering all questions about the “body text” won’t be possible. It is best to leave these questions open and don’t mark them as non-applicable. Unless you know already they won’t be applicable in the future as well. This will allow you to see the improvement if you upload the next version of your designs (pages). Listing them now will help you to keep these things in mind during the rest of the development cycle, e.g. when you start writing the content for your site. Checkout the UserPlus Advisor results page of this early stage expert evaluation

Step 4: Use our best practices and design patterns

As a result of your annotations (tagging) you will also get access to our expertise. A relevant set of our design patterns and best practices is shown on top of your checklist. This expertise should help you to improve the current version of your designs and retest.

Next steps (in part 2: Improve your usability score)

• Communicate the results within your team and possibly to your client (depending on your client of course).
• Continue with the next iteration of your project.
• As soon as your design/project is in a next (improved) phase upload new screenshots and see how much you improved over this iteration.
• Find out about requirements for elements that weren’t in your first designs.

The UserPlus Advisor helps you to run your own in-depth expert review based on a large international set of usability requirements. If you want to try our UserPlus Advisor, sign up for a free Basic account now !