Getting high quality design feedback just got even faster and easier! We are happy to introduce the new version of Usabilla. The simplified design makes it even easier for you to decide on the right test. You can create tests faster, and you get a better overview of your running tests. Log in with your account to see the new design!

The dashboard gives you a clear overview of how your tests are doing. We designed the whole thing from the ground up, so everything is optimized for speed and ease of use. You can setup a test and create an account in only 31 seconds. Seriously, we are not kidding! Have a look:

With our new templates, your choice for the right test becomes even easier. These templates are based on our experience from own tests as well as from helping our users with setting up test cases (our users gathered 1.4 million feedback points last year!).

Apart from improving the user experience of Usabilla, we solidified our framework to support the many great features and improvements that we will bring in the future.

We are curious to hear what you think! Either log in, or try out Usabilla. Good luck with testing!

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For the last few months, we regularly added definitions to our Usability ABC. We are proud to say that we will double our efforts by teaming up with Justin Mifsud of UsabilityGeek fame. By regularly adding and refining definitions to the list, we think this resource can be of help to anyone interested in usability and UX.

Remember to revisit the ABC from time to time (be it on our blog or UsabilityGeek) and be sure to recommend it to colleagues, friends and others that can be helped with the terminology of UX.

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We’re an Amsterdam based international web startup and are looking for eager and ambitious web developers. We offer a fast and simple online platform for usability testing. Our users include 12,000 usability experts, designers, web analysts, and marketeers from all over the world. Companies like Disney, Electronic Arts, Booking.com, Sony, and even Barack Obama use our product to collect valuable feedback from their users.

Are you up for the challenge to work with a company that breathes user experience and usability and works with the worlds’ leading UX professionals and marketeers? Do you want to learn from the development challenges that come with a fast growing web startup? Do you like to work in the absolute center of Amsterdam in a great office in an inspiring building with other startups and creatives? Join our team!

In the upcoming months we’re going to expand our team. We’re looking for eager and experienced developers to join our team in Amsterdam. With your help we’re going to improve and extend our product and grow to over 200.000 accounts in the upcoming two years. Experience with OOP and / or web development frameworks (Zend, Symfony, RoR, Cake, etc) is a must. Extra bonus points for experience with any the following languages / techniques:

• PHP (Symfony 2)
• HTML5
• CSS3
• jQuery
• Amazon Web Services (EC2, S3, SQS)
• GIT
• Agile / Scrum principles
• UX testing
• Design
• MySQL and NoSQL (Couch, MongoDB)
• Node.js
• Python

Are you interested in a rollercoaster ride with a fast growing startup in Amsterdam? Send a short mail with a few references or sample projects to Paul (jobs@usabilla.com).

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With Usabilla it is easy to add additional information to your participants by adjusting the URL to your test. Adding this additional information just got a lot more useful, because we added filter options directly in the sidebar when you analyze your test.

Before I show you the filter options, I will quickly recap how you can alter URLs.

Adding information to participants with the test URL

Let’s say I want to be able to filter people based on whether they clicked on the link distributed via Twitter, or via Facebook. When I finish my test and activate it, I get a participate link, like this one:

http://participate.usabilla.com/1236

I can add information to a participant by appending text to the URL he or she will click. The text is composed in the fashion ?Category=Information, and added directly at the end of the URL. For my example, I will distribute the following two URLs for the same test on Twitter and Facebook:

http://participate.usabilla.com/1236?Src=Twitter

http://participate.usabilla.com/1236?Src=Facebook

I can add more information by composing the URL as follows: ?Category=Information&Another_category=Information. I might want to send out a link at different times, and track that as well, for example.

http://participate.usabilla.com/1236?Src=Twitter&Time=6pm
http://participate.usabilla.com/1236?Src=Twitter&Time=8pm
http://participate.usabilla.com/1236?Src=Facebook&Time=6pm
http://participate.usabilla.com/1236?Src=Facebook&Time=8pm

This is a straightforward example, but combine this with forms that can send information in URLs and you have a lot of power at your disposal. Have a look at our post about integrating Wufoo forms with Usabilla to learn more.

Filter participant data in your sidebar

You find the filtering options in your participant sidebar when analyzing your test. If you don’t have any added testdata, you will only see the Usabilla-specific participant information (total points, total notes, and ID). These are handy to filter out someone who left a large number of points, for example.

Default filter options

In my example test I have an additional ‘Src’ and ‘Time’ category which I can use to filter. In the example below I show all participants that have the value ‘Twitter’ in the category ‘Src’:

Fill in the information, and click the + button

I can combine filters to my hearts content! Here I want all the people who followed the link that was send out via Twitter at 6pm (beware that I use dummy data for this example, hence the same participants show up):

We hope you like this just as much as we do. Don’t hesitate to let us know what you think!

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We made it easier to make your test go viral. From now on, tests created with a paid plan have an ‘Enable Sharing’ checkmark in the test details:

This option is always enabled for tests created on a free plan. When enabled, your participants can click on a Facebook and Twitter button at the end of the test, which make sharing the test much easier:

Good luck testing!

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Our good friends at Bolt | Peters are hosting User Research Friday, where UX, research and design professionals discuss methods and meet each other. The event is held in New York, but simulcasted in San Francisco and in the Usabilla office. We have a 2-way line with the event in NYC, so we can watch all the talks and ask questions.

It’s on friday November the 18th, from 7pm – 11pm. Please let us know if you can come by registering here. Spots are limited.

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Suzanne helped Usabilla a great deal this summer. Her design skills proved invaluable, most of all in creating user flows and thinking about the user experience of our upcoming backend. It was great to have her as an intern, both on a professional and on a personal level! Suzanne was so kind to write a bit about how she experienced her time here, which you can read below. All the best Suzanne! — The Usabilla team

This time last year, I was working as an interaction design consultant at my corporate Park Avenue office in New York City. I would have never thought I’d be spending the next summer in Amsterdam, interning at Usabilla and experiencing the startup culture firsthand.

I left my job last fall to pursue a Master’s degree at the Domus Academy in Italy. When it came time to apply for internships, I wanted to try something new. I had read with interest about Usabilla on SmashingMagazine.com, and emailed Paul Veugen in hopes of persuading him to give me an internship. After a few emails and a Skype interview, I was hired!

I was a little nervous about working for a Dutch company since I didn’t know one word of the language. After all, I had been studying Italian for more than a year and hadn’t planned on living in the Netherlands! My language handicap never proved to be a problem though; the Usabilla team made an extra effort to speak English so I could be included in conversations. This was especially helpful during our regular office lunches- I really appreciated it and felt welcome from day one.

The Usabilla office is located in the heart of Amsterdam. After being too afraid to ever ride a bike in New York City, I decided to be like the Dutch and brave the streets of Amsterdam on bike. Biking to work among the cars, trams and tourists proved one of the most difficult challenges of my internship!

I quickly learned the ins-and-outs of the Usabilla tool and started designing right away. The team here is very collaborative; everyone is willing to give and take ideas and to give help whenever needed. I was lucky enough to see some of my designs coded, tested and implemented the same day. The fast-paced startup culture was drastically different from my corporate experience, but it was very rewarding and I loved every minute of it.

I worked closely with the Usabilla team to develop a new design strategy for Usabilla’s backend. To start, I brainstormed with every member of Usabilla to get a deeper understanding of how they use the tool and what areas could be improved. After collecting input from the team, I was able to come up with design principles that would guide the remainder of my work at Usabilla.

After defining goals to work toward, I began to create flows and wireframe sketches. Every few days, I would present my sketches to the marketing team to ensure I was creating an experience in line with their marketing goals. I would then present my work to the development team and get their feedback on the interaction design and other technical details. Once I gathered both teams’ input, I would start creating digital wireframes.

I decided to use Axure to create my wireframes. I had used the tool previously and knew that it was easy to use and effective, especially in creating HTML prototypes. Axure helped me create wireframes, present HTML prototypes to the Usabilla team, and make changes quickly and efficiently.

My internship ended before I could my wireframes be visually designed and go live, but luckily Usabilla hired two visual designers right before I left. I transitioned my work to the new recruits and I can’t wait to see their hard work pay off when the Usabilla redesign goes live.

My interaction design internship at Usabilla was definitely challenging, but it was also incredibly rewarding. The work we did at breakneck speed with every team member pitching in was something I had never experienced before, but it was exactly what I wanted. I am so thankful to Paul and everyone at Usabilla for giving me freedom to tackle design problems, for challenging me creatively and for allowing me to be a part of their team this summer.

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We are happy to announce that Usabilla now works on mobile devices. Setup a test with screenshots of your app or mobile site and let users participate by using their smartphones or tablets: it’s all possible now, and it works like a charm. Sign in or get started with a free account and setup a mobile test right away, or read on for the details.

Participating in a test on a mobile device

Every Usabilla test that is opened on an iOS or Android device will feature the mobile interface, which does not differ that much from the desktop experience. It is fast, snappy and intuitive.

Users can scroll through the image and tap anywhere to leave a point and type up a note. The ‘Next’ button now floats at the bottom right to avoid clutter in the task area, and users will find a zoom icon at the bottom left.

We also made a screencast for your viewing pleasure:
 
 

Creating a mobile test

Creating a mobile test is just as easy as creating a regular Usabilla test. You can either upload a screenshot that was made on a mobile device, or provide the URL of a site that has a mobile version. Specify whether you want the screenshot to be generated as viewed on a mobile phone or tablet, and you’re set.

Feedback is welcome, as always

We hope you are just as excited as we are—we think this adds a great deal of context to testing mobile apps and websites. Feedback and questions are very welcome, we will be happy to answer them.

Good luck with mobile testing!

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We are happy to announce that our new website is online. We had a lot of fun designing, coding, tweaking and writing it. Out with the old, in with the new!

Our new baby

Do you like the new design? Do you have any feedback or tips? We are planning to test and tweak the site quite a lot, and we couldn’t do it without our customers. Please let us know, we are listening!

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Every day millions of people deal with their personal finances on the Internet. Banks have to tie a lot of systems together to make this possible, and simultaneously ensure that other information is easily accessible. There are a lot of details for banks to cover on a website: information about mortgages, credit cards, locations, insurances, loans, and much more.

Results for one of the tasks in our report

We decided to test the websites of eight large retail banks in greater depth. Banks need to provide a pleasurable online customer experience by embracing the importance of usability and a good User Experience (UX). This provides an opportunity to look at the similarities and differences of a large number of banking websites that all offer the same kind of services.

We utilized Usabilla tests to collect a large amount of qualitative feedback in a short period of time. This is a user test that collects the opinions of real users using real websites. This is not a scientific paper and we did not track behavior. It is instead a quick way to show what goes on inside users heads when they visit these sites.

A total of 400 participants performed simple tasks and gave feedback on the websites of eight leading, large retail banking sites. The participants in our visual surveys reveal positive and negative aspects of banking sites that are easily overlooked when you only focus on the numbers.

You can download the full report here.

A selection of highlights in this report

Different priorities

There appears to be a divide between the priorities of users and the priorities of the banks. Information is often based not on the most frequent actions a user takes on a website, but on the services that banks want to sell.

Trustworthiness

Having an icon of a padlock next to the login and sign in fields conveys safety and security. Users automatically seem to trust sites that use these. Additionally, prominently placed banners and links that mention a security measure or program do well. Too many ads and offers on the other hand, harm the brands trustworthiness.

The panic button

Losing a credit card is normally a very stressful experience that causes a credit card holder extreme anxiety or panic. Most of the banks in the test do not perform well on this task. The experience of losing a credit card could be less stressful for their customers with some minor webpage adjustments. Having a prominent button proves to be very effective and will result in fewer panicked calls to customer service. Our test reveals this as well: both HSBC and Bank of America sport such a button and both score very well.

Clean designed pages

Credit card pages are cluttered with information that requires customers to scan a lot of information before they can decide which credit card choice is best for them. The Royal Bank of Scotland shows this can be refreshingly different: a clean design with simple copy helps users to make good choices.

Keep it real

Banks should avoid using stock photography; it very clearly irritated several of our test participants. They are smart enough to tell the difference between a real and a fake photograph. Banks should add a phone line for live customer service, and place it in a prominent position. Users made it clear that they appreciate this easy, yet very effective feature.

Be sure to read the full report for interesting insights based on the feedback of 400 users.

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