When to test-drive a new web site design

Recently we've received several emails inviting us to come to a newly designed nonprofit web site, and to take a survey expressing how we feel about it. Among them was one for the newly redesigned RedCross.org site.

Doesn't it make more sense, however, to invite some of your regular visitors to your site BEFORE you invest all that money in design?

Jakob Neilsen, the guru of usability, recently said, "Even the tiniest amount of empirical facts (say, observing 2 users) vastly improves the probability of making correct UI [User Interface] design decisions."

Given that, why not (a) invite a few regular users of your site to tell you how they use it and what's wrong with it, and then (b) invite a few users to the newly designed site BEFORE it's launched, and let them tell you what's STILL wrong with it, before you invest thousands of dollars in developing it and promoting it.

If you need some further advise on usability, give us a call.

Fred08 - great site, too bad it doesn't work

I expected more from the Fred Thompson campaign than the others. This guy, who recorded a great YouTube rebuttal to Michael Moore, seemed like the "hippest dude" among the Republican candidates (I know that's not saying much...).

So I went to his new site tonite, after the big announcement, and was surprised and thrilled to see the home page taken up by a bold request to "join" and asking for first and last name, email address and zip. I signed up, and then was directed to a page requiring a street address and a password. It also invited me to enter my cell phone and IM information, but hey, we're not that committed to the campaign.

So imagine my frustration when I got this error message:

Your friend account was not created. Please try again.

So I did try again. And again. and again. Same message. What was I doing wrong? Often it's a password problem (too short, needs a number or alpha character) but here, no explanation. Nada. Insert another quarter and try again.

I even tried it in MSIE instead of my native FireFox, thinking maybe they weren't that hip after all. No dice there either.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH!