Our website is, above all else, a marketing machine. We want it to shine, to represent who we are and be our biggest lead magnet. In the digital climate we live in, so much is riding on our website's success.
Given the significance of your website, It's always a good time to test your website through the eyes of your users. Things that are obvious to you may not be as obvious to visitors to your site. They may encounter hiccups and setbacks that make for a clunky or off-putting web experience.
Have a look at this article, complete with checklists to test your website for success. Want a hard copy of the checklist to use while you test? Download our beautiful User-Testing Checklist and Worksheets.
Create the Test Plan and Screen Inventory
Start by reviewing the site map and creating a checklist specific to your site so that all pages and elements will be tested. We want to avoid getting feedback from users that there are bugs!
- Prepare a list of all screens that need to be tested.
- Jot down some notes on what you want to test on each screen.
- Identify the criteria for the feature to pass your test.
- Identify if a page or feature needs to be run on a special browser, e.g. Google Chrome
- Share this with your test team so that everyone is on the same page.
Testing Time
Now it’s time to get down to testing! The rest of the process is grouped into Functionality, Usability, Basic Security and Design Testing. You may want to do all of these at once when testing a screen.
Functionality Testing:
Links
- Test for broken links.
- Test outgoing links from all pages from a specific domain.
- Test internal links including the ones that jump to the same page.
- Are links properly styled and named?
Forms
- Check field validation for each field.
- Check the default values in each field.
- Go through each of the Create, Delete, or Update forms as needed.
- If there is a multi-step form, check if it shows you what stage you are at when completing the form.
- Does the form tell the user what to do next, e.g. Submit, Next, Continue, Save?
- Does the form show proper confirmation messages after each action?
Cookies
- Check to see if cookies are encrypted.
- Check session cookies for login sessions and user stats.
- Check the effect on application security when cookies are deleted.
Usability Testing:
- Identify the top five things people will want to know or want to do when on your website. Check the overall navigation to see if users will be able to do them easily.
- Check that a navigation menu is provided on each page and is consistent.
- Provide clear instructions to indicate the purpose of each screen.
- Test how users use buttons, search or filter boxes, and navigation links.
- Check to see that the website is easy to use.
Navigation
Content
- Check to see if the content is organized logically with good use of headings, subheadings, paragraphs and bullet points, so it is easy to understand.
- Avoid big blocks of text.
- Check spelling and grammatical errors in content.
- Check for solid background colours that may distract users.
- Check that the content is meaningful and is relevant to the page.
- Ensure all content is accessible through the main navigation menu.
- Validate all items for User Interface (UI) testing.
Help
- Check that a search option is included only if needed.
- Check that a site map is added, with links.
Design Testing
- Compare the original design to the end product to ensure the coded version is true to the design approved by the designer.
- Check image quality on various devices and time to load them.
- Test font colours and sizes on different browsers and devices.
- Test website with other browsers.
- Test website with various screen resolutions.
Basic Security Testing
- Check that protected pages do not open without proper login.
- Check how features behave when nonsensical information is provided in form fields, for example, the last name like "Fake123."
- Check that directories and files cannot be directly accessed without a download option provided from a page.
- Test the CAPTCHA for automated scripts logins.
- Check if SSL is used when sensitive information is presented or accepted on the website.
- Check to see that all payments, error messages, security breach attempts get logged in log files on the server.
Creating a solid test plan and putting yourself in your users’ shoes is essential for a successful launch. It is realistic that some features need to be left out because of time and resource constraints, but your developer may be able to offer alternatives, or at least build the site so that these features can be easily added in the future.
Get more helpful resources for membership site projects on our site!
Comments
Thanks for writing an article on how to test your website. But what has that to do with CiviCRM? CiviCRM is is relationship management tool and can run within your website.