One of the women in the 100 Rejection Letters program suggested Peek as a website that looks into the usability of websites. I’ve been curious about how I should overhaul Morbid Is to make it friendlier and more welcoming, so I figured I’d submit the url for a random user’s impressions.
And this user was certainly random. He was struck by the title of Morbid Is as Morbid Does and seemed put off my it. He glanced over the navigation bar beneath the photo and decided I must be a performance artist — somehow skimming over the Fiction and Nonfiction tabs that precede Performance.
His most helpful comment was to make the subtitle larger, which I think I can do on WordPress. He also wanted it to make it clear that I’m an author from the first, but I’m not sure how anyone might land on my page without knowing that — and I’ve always felt the FB or Twitter handles that designate someone as “Author Jane Smith” were pretentious.
Finally he suggested I have a welcome page, rather than having the site open immediately onto my blog. That’s something I’ve considered before, although I’m usually underwhelmed and irritated by people’s landing pages slowing me down on the way to the content I want. Maybe I’ll make a landing page and see how I feel about it later. I think there’s a way to change what is considered Home on WordPress.
Would Peek be useful for you to check out? I’m not sure. The site doesn’t ask anything about what the site is before passing its url along, so the users are truly coming to you blind. Are random strangers likely to wander by your site?
I would have found it more useful to have another author or an editor or, even better, a reader look over my site. Apparently, as part of its paid tier, Peek can match you up more closely with your target audience. I’m not sure if I will take them up on that, but the $49 for a basic video test seems reasonable.
If you’re interested, here’s the free video test of this site: http://peek.usertesting.com/result/0385817526922?autoplay=true
Here’s their advertisement of what they do:
Get a peek into your site’s usability.
