User Experience (UX) testing is a way of learning about how your customers experience your software, in their natural environment. UX testing techniques developed from the idea of tracing cognitive processes as methods to study actual behaviour at an atomic level, the use of verbal reports and protocols for their analysis in data collection has evolved largely from efforts at understanding human problem solving in the field of psychology (Ericsson & Simon, 1980; Newell & Simon, 1972).

How UX is conducted

The UX testing technique most often used today is the Think-Aloud Protocol (TAP) method developed by Lewis (1980) at IBM research. In think-aloud protocol (TAP) sessions, the participant is asked to vocalise their thoughts, their actions, their expectations of the results of those actions and, any confusion or concerns arising, in the presence of a facilitator. This facilitator also observes the session and may prompt the participant in order to keep the commentary alive. There are two distinct types of TAP, which produce the best results when used in conjunction - Concurrent Analysis and Retrospective Analysis.

If you have a business which you think is suitable for selling products or services online you may already have thought about creating an ecommerce enabled website. You may even already have your product catalogue online in some form, though not necessarily in a form that lends itself easily to an ecommerce setup. Here I’m going to talk about what to look out for when considering an ecommerce implementation, how these systems are put together and how you might structure them and their connection to your existing work methods.

In the beginning was the 'brochureware' website when businesses just wanted to get some details of what they do and where they are online. As security and trust became more established the big players started selling things online and so too did the smaller players. That's one of those advantages of the Internet, you can compete a little easier, sure you still have limited resources but ecommerce is all about working smarter and not necessarily harder. Small businesses are often smarter and more flexible than the big players. So, in order to work smarter you need a system that’s fairly easy to manage on a day to day basis that is a storefront on the Internet for you.