Web Site Useability test. I'm wanting a web site review,(not to find
where I can get a reviewer). I need a google researcher to perform a
useability test on the HOME PAGE at www.headsets.com, and the first 5
or 6 pages they think they would choose to go to if they were looking
for a headset.  I'm looking to get their experience and feedback, as
well as their opinions and suggestions.  Please can you give any
thought processes you have while you do the test. i.e. "wow this is
confusing on page www.xxxxxxx.com/xxxxx (paste link and specify what).
 This was useful on page wwww.xxxx.com/xxxx (paste link and specify
what).  CLARIFICATION - I'm not after books, or services or links as
to how to design a website or who can do this. I'm specifically
wanting the assistance of a google answerwer to give me their user
experience and their suggestions. Thanks!

Hi there!

I'm really fickle about my browser preferences, switching depending on
what I'm doing, so the first thing I did was open your page up in
Mozilla, IE and Opera.  It looks terrific in all three of them. 
You've handled cross browser compatibility very well on the home page,
but for a few things that probably can't be helped.

Since Opera is the browser most likely to "break" something, I
conducted my test using Opera first.  If I didn't know anything at all
about your company, the first thing I would do would be to check out
your Service Commitment section.  Opera doesn't like these links with
the "accept pop ups" option turned off, and doesn't do much better
with them with that option turned on - it opens a full browser window
instead of the little informational box that appears in Mozilla and
IE.  (Many people keep pop ups turned off to avoid those awful ads
that seem to follow everyone around.)  I use Mozilla with pop ups
turned off, but it handled the links just fine - it only filters out
unrequested pop ups.  Opera doesn't seem to make that distinction -
just a datapoint for you, it seems to handle everything else just
fine, without altering the appearance or usability of the rest of the
site.

Opera also doesn't seem to like the Live Help Option.  It opens a Live
Help window...but nothing happens.  This wasn't a problem in IE - I
got Sam almost instantaneously.

I spend a considerable amount of time on the telephone each day, and
discovered long ago that using a headset with my cordless phone allows
me to chase my kids, do my housework and still pay attention to calls,
all at the same time.  I'm always looking for a better headset, so I
decided to check out the Wireless tab, and the "How Do I Choose?"
section.  I found the page to be helpful and concise - the suggestions
are tailored for different sorts of activities instead of being geared
toward selling the most expensive model.  Chris's staff profile and
his detailed reason why he liked a particular model is a nice touch.

My next stop was 900MHz Solutions, as my own phone is a 900MHz V-tech
cordless.   The Plantronics CS10 Wireless Headset System says that it
"works with your existing phone". This is where I ran into a little
confusion:

[ http://www.headsets.com/headsets/wireless/900mhz/wireless_cs10.html
]

I cannot tell how it might work with my own phone.  Granted, your
solutions appear to be geared more towards business than towards home
users, but perhaps a link to a list of compatible phones might be
helpful?  Or a brief explanation of how to connect it to a typical
phone setup?

Upon further perusal, it appeared that perhaps Cellular headsets might
be compatible with my own phone, so I had a look at the Cellular tab. 
Sure enough, the "How Do I Choose" section discusses why Cellular
headsets are often used with cordless phones.  Aha!

It might be useful to include a link in the "Wireless" section asking
"Cordless Phone?", and directing users to the Cellular headsets.

Browsing through the recommendations of Cellular headsets, I again
found the staff profile to be a nice touch, and Mike's musing about
the Bluetooth unit really tickled my geeky funnybone.  It's apparent
from the staff profiles that this company is interested in building a
friendly and honest relationship with the customers, without being
cheesy or pushy.  I also like that the possible need for an adapter is
discussed, and that the option to have the company check for
compatibility *before* shipping one is offered.  That extra bit of
customer service, instead of pushing off a possibly useless piece of
equipment, is very nice, and leaves a favorable impression.

I decided to see what would happen if I added the Over-the-Head
Cellular Headset to the cart, and proceeded to checkout.  Though I
didn't complete the checkout process entirely, I did play with
changing the shipping options, and found that the page updated
swiftly, with no hangups.  The checkout page is well laid out, very
easy to read (very helpful, as I'm quite nearsighted), and
uncluttered.

I repeated this run through in IE and in Mozilla (except for clicking
on the Live Help in Mozilla.  I figured bothering Sam once was
plenty.), and uncovered no problems, save the one small bit of
confusion above.  The site is well written, clearly organized and
leaves me feeling comfortable that the company is interested in the
needs of the customers.

So comfortable, in fact, that I'll be completing that checkout next
week.  I need a new headset again, and I'm tired of the RadioShack
sets. :)

If you'd like me to run through other portions of your site, do let me
know.  I had fun looking at all the telephone gadgets.

Regards,

missy-ga

Thanks Missy. :-) Nice work.

Good question! More site owners should get usability feedback. I'm not
registered as a researcher yet, but wanted to chime in anyway.

Your home page is quite attractive and well-laid-out. The page doesn't
lurch as graphics download (which means your tables and IMG tags are
done correctly). It also works in 800 x 600 resolution without
side-scrolling: good job!

However, it took about a minute to fully load on my computer, which
has a 56K modem. Slow page loading is the #1 complaint of Web users,
so you need to find some ways to work around this. (Even users with
fast connections like pages that load really fast.)

The "chat with a headset specialist" feature was confusing. Are they
going to talk to you, or is it online chat, or ? I think the links to
individual people are unneeded on every page of the site, unless this
gets a large amount of traffic and sales.

I liked the "Most Popular" features and the price details. You should
have a "Most Popular" page so all the top products can be featured.

I tried the Wizard, and the first question was whether my cell phone
has a 2.5mm jack. Most people won't know. The bit about "I'd like this
emailed to me" should be at the end, after the person sees the answer.
The final answer should have more info - why that choice, a "more
choices" button, and show the product description.

The site needs a good edit - this is a big usability issue. I saw a
misspelling and a layout error in visiting 5-6 pages.

I clicked on the Corded tab and that page also took about a minute to
load.

A few business thoughts: 
 - I thought it was friendly to put your address on the home page, but
probably indicates a smaller site than you want to be perceived as
having.
 - Have you considered supporting Spanish? It will make you seem like
a leader even among non-Spanish speakers.
 - Are you #1 in your niche? If so, say so - people like that.

Thanks Budsmith. Get registered as a researcher so I can pay you next
time :-) Can you email me the mispelling and the layout error, and
anything else, and then if you want to go to the site and order a cell
phone headset, put MIKE FAITH in the credit card slot, and i'll sign
off on the order. :-)

The first thing that strikes me is the link to your 'Wizard'.  That
graphic looks awfully like the one © Microsoft (as seen in their
Windows XP Product Activation system and welcome intro).  Do you have
permission to use it?   (The site looks very good by the way - I am
just looking out for you).

Hi, 

You have already got some optimistic view points on your web site, and
views from a visual aspect. I thought I would go through it as a
Internet programmer and list some of the items I've found.

The pages are slow, even when returning to a page I've already used
and supposedly cached.

Something to think about is that you have several trademark names in
your meta tag area and keywords. There have been numerous cases where
companies have been successfully sued and their sites removed because
of this. Perhaps simply getting permission to do this from the
companies would save much hassle in the future.

One of the reasons your pages are slow is because the code is pulling
the images from a different server. This is why the caching isn't
working.

Several of the javascript programs are in separate files, this will
also slow things down, though the trade off is an easier to maintain
site, so that would probably stay as it is.

The main page repeats the word "headset" several times ( 8 to be
exact). This is called keyword spamming and many search engines frown
on this type of positioning tactic.

The site has a pretty good page rank from Google. 

The site is heavily dependent on Javascript, which is turned off on
many user browsers.

The site is also very reliant on hyper-links to other web site pages,
this opens you up to having a site that doesn't appear to "work
properly" if the other sites start changing around (which they always
do). Since you obviously have ASP programmers you could add in checks
(if you don't have them already) to make sure that these links always
work. With so many outside links, such checks are going to have to be
done often. If http://hs.zappos.com ever goes down you'll loose most
of your web site anyway. I see that you own this site, but relying on
two servers to stay running so one web site can function is not really
the best of plans.

Hope this helps and thanks for the question

webadept-ga

My two cents:

I'm a Macintosh user (primarily) with a standard 15-inch monitor. I
must award kudos to Headsets.com for building a reasonable-width site!

I spent a bit of time playing with your Search capability (good job!),
and I must also comment that your choice of meta keywords seem
appropriate, even including your competitors. :)

I found the site to be fast-loading with IE, Netscape and AOL. Not
only that, the pages looked the same on all three browsers on *both*
the Mac and the PC! (Harder than it seems!)

Good luck with  your site.
Captvatng1