Magento is a platform that provides users with a lot of support and it generally does a great job of providing a great, robust base for you to grow your online store. Still, every now and then you need to check if everything is going well on your website.
Magento has a lot of useful features in this regard, but nothing beats the human factor, so make sure to set some time aside every now and then to carefully go through the site to check for potential errors and weak spots when it comes to your store’s general usability.
It’s All About Responsiveness
If you are a Magento merchant, we sincerely hope you already made sure that your website is mobile responsive and that users can reach and browse your store without any issues from their mobile devices. Online sales from mobile phones have skyrocketed over the last few years and this trend shows no signs of slowing down as smartphones and other handheld devices become more widespread.
Mobile responsive websites are websites that changes automatically depending on what size screen they are viewed on. Sites that are not responsive have to be zoomed in and out and dragged around in order to reach all corners of it, and this is not something that an average smartphone user is particularly fond of, which is precisely why we need responsive websites.
However, having a mobile responsive online store doesn’t mean your job in that sense is done. On the contrary – you need to pay a lot of attention to how your website is behaving on smaller devices, to make sure everything is in place, looking good and running smoothly. Because of this, we have decided to put together a little list of things to look for when checking and testing your mobile site.
Test Your Colors
You’d think that colors on your pages are the least important element, but it’s quite the opposite, really. Colors are powerful symbols – an average user will intuitively guess the role of an element on your website just by its color. Furthermore, you want all your colors to be standard and consistent with the design theme of your website.
Color schemes can sometimes get a bit wobbled on mobile sites, so you need to check it out every now and then and see if everything is in order. In particular, check your hyperlink colors, standard link colors, field backgrounds, buttons (also check for size and format, as well as font), and, of course, general background color.
Test Your Content
All of your content, including content blocks (separate pages with blog posts, lists, articles, etc.) also needs to be checked for consistency. It probably seems cumbersome having to check every piece of text on your website, but you don’t have to do it too often. Check your fonts for consistency (font type, size and color), text alignment, blank spaces between blocks of text, screen prompts, and, of course, headings.
Test Your Images and Graphics
Moving on to the images and graphics now, you need to check all pictures and other graphic elements on your site. You will, of course, check to see if they load properly and if their size is adjusted to the mobile site resolution. Next, check if they are all properly aligned and if text wraps properly around them.
Test Your Instructions
Sometimes, merchants don’t pay enough attention to the messages and instructions on their websites, which is a huge mistake, since there is no way your website will always working without any bugs and never displaying, say, error messages. You need to make sure these work well too – check if all text is displayed correctly, including micro-help text, as well as progress messages when loading active screens.
Test Your Navigation
Here, you should pay particular attention to TAB sequences on your website, since they often tend to go buggy. For instance, make sure that disabled fields are skipped in TAB sequence, as well as read-only fields. Make sure that every page displays a Home Page link in a clear and efficient manner.
Usability Testing
Finally, the most important part – your website’s usability. Usability basically means ease of use, a factor that allows your visitors to use your website with ease and efficiency and to achieve what they came there to achieve in a quick, smooth and error-free way.
To test if your online store provides such experience, we suggest you check your prompts (again) looking into every little detail, from spelling to actual actions they encompass, to check if the pages load properly so that no parts of them are cut off, if everything is clear, visible and, most importantly, easily recognizable, if your customer service is clearly marked and easily accessible. In the end, put yourself in your user’s position and see if the overall experience is convenient and frustration-free.
