Sunday, November 8, 2009

Best Free Tools To Evaluate Your Web Design

An identification of any effective web design is that it makes easier for the users to get information quickly and in an orderly manner. Being a site-owner you should ask yourself some questions like - Are they reading the content you want them to read? Are they getting the message you put on your web pages? Is it easy to get at them? Are you successful in keeping your customer’s attention, or are they leaving quickly? These rules are not only with the content.

If your site loads slowly – or navigation from one area to other takes long time – then it is definitely affecting your user’s experience. These factors can either make or break your business. These things can either make a visitor to click on a link to get more information, or incite him to leave and go to any other site.

Therefore, here are few important things you should consider:

Are users reading important information on your site?

Are the navigation and action items working promptly?

Is the design taking the users to different sections in a logical way?

Does the web pages load quickly and not letting them move away?

If you want to analyze and optimize the layout of your web pages then here are some excellent tools for you.

1- Clickdensity

Clickdensity is a full suite having utilities for usage analysis aimed to assess webpage design. Heat maps show the spots visitors click the most. Hover maps show links where users scroll over but do not click. A/B Tests enables you to customize page by changing different page elements and make the style that is more effective in appearance and performance. On free subscription you are offered 5,000 clicks and just one page and one website to check.

2. ClickHeat

ClickHeat is an open source visual utility so that you can see “hot” or “cold” areas of your web pages. You can check the spots users click most and the spots users ignore. This tool is very simple and you can easily use it on your site; the only thing you require is to add an external JavaScript file.

3. Crazy Egg

You get a plethora of analytical tools with Crazy Egg which are helpful to see what your visitors are doing. There is a feature, Confetti, that allows checking where visitors are clicking and it also tells from where the traffic is generating. Second important feature is Overlay; it provides tons of information about particular links. And finally, there is option of Report sharing that enables you to share your data with others like your team members and customers.

With its free version you can just track 4 of your web pages, so use this limited offer for your top visiting pages.

4. ClickTale

ClickTale provides lot of information about how visitors are using your website. Different kinds of information are available to you like an average time user taking to click on any link and the information about if user hesitates to click on link. It generates detailed reports and charts by categorizing different types of users; you can use this information to optimize your web page design and shape it for typical visitors.

5. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the best services Google offering free to us. With this most popular and easy-to-install analytics tool, you get lot of information about users and site-content and learn true about your web pages’ performance. Site Overlay presents visual display of the hot places your visitors mostly click on. It also provides detailed information on bounce rates and pages that make users leave.

These are some of the best tools available out there. Use them in troubleshooting and optimization of your pages' layout. Ultimately, it matters how you combine site contents, and how you present them - that's all what makes any web design effective one.

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