Heal Your Church WebSite

Tag: testing

  • 12 Days of Jesus Junk – Day 4 – Unreadable at 11:23

    Even though I’m a software guy, I think if I were asked to design a religious-themed wall clock I might steer clear of some of the usability issues I find with the Jesus Christ Carrying Cross Christian Theme Wall Clock parodied below:

    12 Days of Jesus Junk - Day 4 - Unreadable at 11:23

    What usability issue? Well if I’m a user sitting across the room at 11:23, and possibly at 4:55 and 8:05, I might find it hard to see what time it is because of the dark black lines of the artwork create a dark black background for the thin black arms of the clock.

    So what has this got to do with my church or charity website? Glad you asked.

    What we want to take away from today’s example is the concept that part of a successful user interface isn’t just design that looks good (not that I find the clock artwork all that inspiring) — but also a design facilitates a positive and productive user experience.

    This can be measured in ‘conversion rates,’ that is the rate at which the user successfully uses the website (or clock) to accomplish some item of work or information gathering.

    This means we need to avoid design elements get in the way of a web page’s core functionality, otherwise we’re left with the antithesis of conversion – the user abandons the product – often quantified as the ‘bounce rate.‘

    To help avoid this common pitfall, I offer this “fast five” lists of things to remember when designing a webpage:

    1. You are not your user;
    2. solve their problems, don’t burden them yours;
    3. don’t assume all any of your users are idiots;
    4. engage in user testing – where non-geeks attempt simple, common tasks; and
    5. when a problem and/or encumbrance by a user is reported – do what it takes to provide the user a clear path to operational/work-flow success.

    On that last point, think Amazon.com, the premier example of conversion goals in action. When they hear of something that gets in the user’s way – even if it sounds stupid – they fix their site to accommodate the customer.

    I’d recommend doing the same, perhaps starting with some good-old-fashioned hallway testing and moving out from there.




  • 12 Days of Jesus Junk – Day 2 – Think Globally!

    As once again the  TSA reminds us that Christmas Snow Globes a threat to National Security, I thought it might be a good time to talk about the wide-World of bad-guys and some simple things you can do to guard your site from a potentially explosive situation.

    12 Days of Jesus Junk - Day 2 - Think Globally

    Unlike the 5.5″ The Kneeling Santa Claus Musical Christmas Water Globe parodies above, there are some real threats to your website that are an unfortunate aspect of the “World Wide” nature of the Web.

    Specifically, I’m talking about the army of professional hackers employed in far flung regions such as China, Nigeria and of course what is now the former U.S.S.R.

    For that, I recommend a modification to your  .htaccess file such as:

    <Limit GET HEAD POST>
deny from 218.25.161
allow from all
</LIMIT>

    If you look close, I’m only using 3 levels of the IP address to 218.25.161.0 through 218.25.161.255.

    And where does one get a block of  IPs to block? Glad you asked …

    Pre-fabricated blacklists to block IP addresses of entire countries:

    A bit more on .htaccess and mod_access:

    Just remember to keep good backups of whatever files you’re working on – and try not to lock yourself out while experimenting with changes!

  • 12 Days of Jesus Junk – Day 1 – Hallway Testing

    I’m sure the makers of the Gemmy 6ft Airblown Inflatable Christmas Nativity Scene parodied below were not trying to assert that Jesus was of Aryan descent:

    Avoid accidental message myopia by subjecting all your design work to hallway testing

    So how do we avoid the type of ‘accidental-message-myopia‘ that produces a design that includes a not-so Middle-East,  blond haired (and possibly blue-eyed)  baby Jesus?  Two words “Hallway Testing.”

    The Wikipedia describes hallway testing as:

    Hallway testing (or hallway usability testing) is a specific methodology of software usability testing. Rather than using an in-house, trained group of testers, just five to six random people, indicative of a cross-section of end users, are brought in to test the software (be it an application, web site, etc.); the name of the technique refers to the fact that the testers should be random people who pass by in the hallway. The theory, as adopted from Jakob Nielsen’s research, is that 95% of usability problems can be discovered using this technique.

    In short, hallway testing is the simple act of accosting … I mean drafting … I mean enlisting 5 or 6 random individuals to inspect your designs to insure among other things, you’re not overlooking some detail great or small that accidentally sends the wrong message.

    I know it’s an extra step in the web design process, but when one considers alternatives as the above parody poster depiction, it’s probably worth it.

  • 5 things we can learn from the Winston-Salem Hampton-Inn Toaster Czar

    See why the Soup Nazi is a bad model for supporting users of your church and/or charity website .This weekend, I ran into an elderly gentleman whom appointed himself the ‘Toaster Czar’ in a fashion similar to the infamous ‘Soup Nazi‘ of Jerry Seinfeld fame. I made the mistake leaving my bagel momentary unattended to go get coffee while trying to enjoy the complimentary breakfast at the Hampton Inn Winston-Salem-I-40/Hanes Mall. Here are 5 things your church and/or charity webmaster can learn from this experience:

    1. don’t assume you know your user’s context;
    2. don’t assume you know your users work-flow;
    3. don’t assume you know what’s best for your user;
    4. don’t assume your user will appreciate your intervention; and
    5. don’t assume your user is stupid.

    Note that all 5 points deal with assumptions. For example, regarding context, one might assume that the individual pictured below is waving and saying “hellooo” – or they could be waving us off saying “noo.”

    bagels enjoyed in the public setting of the Hampton Inn Hotel lobby

    Another example, regarding knowing what’s best, thinking they are stupid and/or not understanding their work-flow, the aforementioned toaster czar possibly assumed that the unattended bagel in slots 1 and 2 of a 4 slot toaster were either:

    • done;
    • done enough;
    • abandoned;
    • in his way; and/or
    • there to annoy him

    Whether or not my opinion of his motives are correct, my view is that he potentially didn’t take into consideration the following user-centric scenarios:

    • some like to eat their bagels in the context of their coffee;
    • some like to engage in a work-flow that includes getting coffee while the bagel toasts;
    • some are confused when 1 slice of the bagel remains in the toaster while the other sits on the counter, replaced by some one else’s bagel half;
    • some lose their appetite when others not involved in food services touching their food; and
    • some don’t like being treated as if they are the problem when in fact all they wanted to do was toast their bagel and eat breakfast in relative peace.

    In the same way, you as church webmasters should consider that your users:

    • may like to consume your church website content in some other context other than initially planned – for example, aggregators and/or mobile phones come to mind;
    • may like to consume your charity website in an order other (work-flow) than initially imagined and/or programmed – for example, site navigation through search engines comes to mind;
    • may need more information when things operate outside of normal expectations – for example, more informative 404 errors for pages not found come to mind;
    • Click here to see a video about Nick Burns, a hilariously popular character of former SNL funnyman Jimmy Fallon.may get turned-off if they find content they contributed modified without annotation – for example, modifying a user’s comment on a church blog or bbs without noting it was edited by a moderator or admin will drive users away permanently;
    • may not want nor like the Jimmy Fallon/Nick Burns ‘Your Company’s Computer Guy‘ approach to web site support (let alone a communal toaster).

    Bottom line, don’t be a toaster czar.

    Treat users as you would guests in your house, not as idiot low-life’s whom annoy by making you wait an extra minute or two simply because they happened to get to the proverbial toaster 30 seconds before you did.

    In other words, you are not your users – so don’t assume you completely understand their interface to your system without collecting realistic and specific usage metrics and spending some time setting next to them while they demonstrate how they navigate your site the way they do, and why.

    What about you? Got a similar story or useful use case/test scenario to share? Leave comment in love!

    In the meantime I leave you with this aggregation from the above caricatures : “moooove … no soup for you!… was that so hard? … come back, 1 year … you’re Welcome “