Ever build a new site only to find that people don't like it? If so, you’re painfully aware that it's easy to develop features, but hard to please users.
Now you can get user feedback easily and without the fear of getting your feelings hurt. You don't even have to have a working website, just a mockup image.
There are 3 user feedback services that have made me a better entrepreneur.
First is UsabilityHub, home of the Five Second Test. The Five Second Test forces you state your service in one clear sentence and have a prominent call to action. Another type of test is the Click Test. I like the Click Test because I use it to poll 50+ people. For example, we had to choose a color scheme and took a vote on orange vs white. 33% liked orange, 67% liked white. It was an easy decision.
Second is the local DevBridge + Andrew Follett team at ConceptFeedback. This is good for getting action items and detailed suggestions. It's a good service for when you are stuck.
Finally, there's FeedbackArmy. For $15 you can get 6 UX questions answered by 10 Mechanical Turk workers. This is a great service for testing your marketing message because the feedback is from typical web users, not people in the web industry as on UH and CF.
The feedback from these services is much better than asking people you know. Complete strangers won't hold back. They say, I don't trust this page, That wasn't clear to me and I don't like the idea of.... But they also give insight and suggestions like I prefer ... and How about ....
Sometimes you get crackpot advice that has to be ignored. One person told me to Start Over and to get inspiration from thefind.com's home page. Just look at that home page and you'll know they are uninformed.
Measure your progress. When I started, 90% of the testers did not understand my site, PopWatchers. Now only
10% don't get it.
What tools have you found to improve your UX?
