I couldn’t make it to the presentation on Monday, so instead I’m writing about another relevant presentation by Adam Hermsdorfer of BigTuna Interactive on Website Optimization. Might be cool since not everyone got to see this one!
So, BigTuna Interactive deals with website optimizations for pro athletes and businesses. Adam Hermsdorfer is the founder of the company, and it was originally based in San Diego and recently relocated to Austin.
One way the company helps optimize websites for their costumers is by using a variety of tools to test the site’s usability. He separates these into two categories: qualitative and quantitative research tools.For qualitative tools he suggested Silverback which video records a person’s facial expression as they’re using a website. Skype can also be used in a similar way to test websites. He also mentioned usertesting.com where a task list can be submitted for testing, and they will complete the tasks and return feedback.
For Quanitative research tools, he suggested Crazy Egg that uses heat tracking to determine where the cursor has been to predict the user’s line of vision on the screen. He also spoke a lot about Optimizely, which allows you to test one version of a webpage against another to see which more users prefer. He mentioned the founder of Optimizely originally using this test to help make Obama’s campaign website when he was running for his first term. Awesome stuff! Optimizely is definitely the tool I think I would find most useful.
Seems like a cool little company! He sent me the link to his presentation if anyone would like to look over it. You can also check out the BigTuna website.