Improving Website Usability Using Google Website Optimiser
with Steve Young and Jim Williams
6thMay '09
About the event
Design is very subjective, one man's meat is another man's poison. A website may look pretty in your opinion, but design is not just about how something looks, it has a job to do - it needs to be usable. If your design is not doing the job it's supposed to do, i.e. making you money, it doesn't matter if it looks nice. Many arguments have been had (and time wasted) choosing one design over another, "I think that one is better!", "why?", "erm... I don't know, it looks better?". To borrow a phrase from Harry Hill, "There's only one way to find out... fight!"
We prefer not to spill blood these days and that's where Google Website Optimiser comes in; science to the rescue. By measuring which page layout is more effective at achieving the desired conversion we can quickly determine which design is best and learn from that to help make design decisions easier in the future. One image or line of copy may mean the difference between being profitable or not. We'll be using lots of case studies to show you how we've started using Google Website Optimizer to run A/B Split and Multivariate Tests in the development of a social networking/gaming site and share some of the mistakes and lessons learned. It would then be good to open the meeting up to discuss how to use optimisation tools to improve website usability.
More about the speaker(s)
Steve Young is Creative Director at WeeWorld. With over 12 years experience in the web-design sphere Steve graduated from Product Design from GSA in '96. He soon became an early adopter of Flash and after an exciting and varied career path was later responsible for the conception of the WeeWorld site and WeeMee avatar engine.
At WeeWorld Steve built a team of talented designers, flash developers, illustrators, animators and coders. He also manages many 3rd party relationships round the world and is responsible for the creative look and feel of the WeeWorld product and its future.
Jim Williams is Web Analyst at WeeWorld. A passionate advocate of using analytics to drive website design - Jim has been working in web analytics since 2002 starting in pharmaceuticals and e-commerce sectors before moving into consultancy. At WeeWorld Jim has introduced innovative data based decision making processes to manage product and marketing strategy. Typically using web analytics and user testing to initially poorly performing areas of the site before employing tools such as Google Website Optimizer to experiment with design improvements and improve website conversions. Jim is also President of the Scottish UPA and an active member of the Web Analytics Association.
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