Your home page is the front door of your e-business.

Will potential customers venture in and like what they see, or will they take their business elsewhere?

I have collaborated in original scientific research on home pages that has been presented at several conferences

When it comes to home pages, opinions abound.

Contact me for a scientific approach that balances the needs of your visitors with the needs of your business.

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Home Page Evaluation

Issue addressed

“We know our home page is the critical first step to gaining or losing customers. Is our home page as effective as it could be?”

Your challenge: Don't drive away business with an ineffective home page

In a matter of moments, your Internet site's home page says a lot about your site and your company. The key to making this a favorable experience for your prospective customer, and for your business, is for the visitor to be able to quickly recognize and obtain the value they seek when they arrive at your home page.

But home page design is tricky business:

  • Historically, the home page has been a political battle for "shelf space" among various groups in a company.
  • Rethinking required when you discover that your customers visit your site to address their needs, not to learn about your business structure.
  • There is the issue of how to effectively serve the goals and expectations of all your key market segments.
  • There is the challenge of conveying the value of your brand through visual design and key content.
  • And there is the problem of how to entice visitors to act according to your business goals.

Every designer has an opinion about how they can make an effective home page for your business. Tabs? Drop-down list box selectors? Flash? Dynamic menus? Graphics as links? I've heard and read these opinions all too often. For some reason, there are still a lot of ineffective home pages out there.

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My solution for your project

As a Ph.D. psychologist and scientist, I work with quality scientific data to help you optimize your home page to satisfy your site's visitors and drive your business. That includes:

  • Data from your business regarding your online business strategy, business goals, and fixed parameters that your home page must respect (i.e., corporate branding style-guide).
  • Data gathered directly from a good sample of your target audience using the most suitable scientific psychological research techniques.
  • Knowledge about end-user perceptions and behavior specifically regarding home pages from my extensive prior work with end-users in the usability lab, and from the latest scientific research.

The methods I use evaluate the static elements of your home page, including:

  • layout
  • content inventory and features
  • banner ads
  • content style
  • font and text styles
  • graphics
  • link styles
  • available site-utilities
  • menu structure

I also evaluate the usability of interactive controls, as well as the navigational interaction from the home page to one-level down in the menu-hierarchy (and back again). Usability issues that are discovered in this restricted testing often generalize to the rest of the site.

Personna- and scenario-based evaluations of your home page are conducted as well.

I deliver a comprehensive scientific analysis, based on a sample of targeted end-users, of where your home page fails to deliver. I also provide detailed recommendations on how to make your home page more effective for your markets, and ultimately, for your business.

To make things more interesting, I can perform the analysis on a head-to-head comparison of your current home page with a prototype redesign you are considering to launch. I can even evaluate two different prototypes; the analysis will enable you to settle on one design that includes the best features of both.

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Last update: May 07, 2002
(c) 2002 Don Hameluck Usability Consulting Inc.

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