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Reports >
Web Support Assessment Techniques
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Web Support Assessment Techniques
Publication date: 12/06
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Executive summary
Web support sites are often so complex that it's hard for
developers to spot critical problems with navigation and
functionality. Anecdotal comments by users can help identify many
individual glitches, but comments rarely provide a big-picture view
of problems with usability, performance, or design. Drawing on ten
years of experience with the ASP's annual "Ten Best Web Support
Sites" awards and other custom assessment projects, Jeffrey Tarter
describes five separate techniques for systematically analyzing Web
support sites:
- Task-Oriented Scenario Analysis
- Traffic Analysis
- Design and Copy Review
- Knowledgebase Analysis
- Competitive Benchmarking
"Each of these techniques can provide useful, systematic information
about a site's strengths and weaknesses," Tarter says. "But there
are important synergies when you combine several of these views of
the site. Real customers bring several different perspectives to a
site—such as overall navigational logic, expectations set by
other sites, basic search functionality, fits and finishes, and
more—and the best way to analyze a site is to capture these
multiple views."
An integrated view also helps site developers define priorities for
upgrades and enhancements, the report notes. "Anecdotal analysis
inevitably leads to 'squeeky wheel' fixes, not a balanced plan,"
says Tarter.
Copies of the Web assessment techniques report are free to ASP
members
in the
members-only area.
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