A new website design offers so much functionality that good testing is very important. With these short tips you will not overlook anything and this will benefit the website design and user-friendliness of your site.

Tip 1: appoint a coordinator
Assign one person who collects the test findings and passes them on to the developer. This person is preferably someone who is familiar with the plan of the website design and can judge whether the delivered website meets all the requirements set in the plan.

Tip 2: work with annotated screenshots
When testing, it is important to communicate wishes and adaptation requests quickly and clearly. You do this the quickest by using a program that can make so-called 'annotated' screenshots. Screenshots, where you can add arrows, frames and text for clarification. Well-known programs that can be: Jing , Skitch and Clarify.

Tip 3: test in different browsers
If you already have an existing website, you probably know with which web browser your users surf the most. While testing, focus on that browser, but at least test the website in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari browsers.

Tip 4: test on different screens and devices
Test a website on different screen resolutions. Make sure the site looks as nice on a laptop as on a large 27 inch monitor. Do not forget tablets and smartphones today. What does your site look like on these portable platforms? Use tools such as [ Screenfly, or Google's mobile testing tool to facilitate this kind of testing. A responsive website design can give you a quick and good view on different resolutions.

Tip 5: in addition to design, pay attention to interaction design
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs once said that design is not how something looks, but how something works. With an interactive medium like the internet, this is more important than ever. So, in addition to all 'eye-candy', pay attention to user-friendliness when testing.

Tip 6: be critical of search engine friendliness
Always check whether the HTML generated by the CMS is search engine-friendly. So check if neat H-tags are placed around headers, whether the site has a meta description and title, and so on. If you use AccentCMS this is obviously already well arranged.

Tip 7: check hyperlinks
Do you use many hyperlinks on your site? Check if all of these work. Especially if the new site is built on top of an old site, or if the site is put live from a test environment, something can go wrong with links. A useful tool for automatically searching for broken links is the [ Online Broken Link Checker ].

Tip 8: do user tests
Do not just let the tests run by the 'IT nerd' within your company, but also ask employees to test, especially if they ultimately have to work with the system. And most important of all: do not forget the target group of your site. Depending on the nature of your project, it can be highly recommended to do a visitor's test.

Tip 9: test all functions
Make sure your test pages use all the functionalities that the website offers. For example, if you create a page, make sure that all elements are in it. For example, a numbered and an unnumbered list, images with captions, embedded video (YouTube for example). Test all these cases and see if the template of the site is calculated on long words, standing photos, and so on.

Tip 10: pay attention to performance and speed
With the current fast cable connections you would almost forget this, but it remains important. Always check whether your website performs well. If necessary, use an automated service such as [WebPage Test] if you want to do an independent test. On that site you can also easily see on a timeline full of screenshots how your site loads and performs.

Author's Bio: 

Misty Jhones