Usability testing is on the increase led by companies like PlayableGames and Vertical Slice in the UK, and Microsoft Games Studios having offered their gameplay lab services to their exclusive developers for Xbox from before 20031. Yet it can be regarded as expensive, troublesome to organise and just a distraction from making features for a game product.

It doesn’t have to be.

Users expect websites to work on their mobile phones. In two to three years, mobile support will become standard for any site. Web developers must add mobile web development to their skill set or risk losing clients.

How do you make websites mobile compatible? The answer is obvious: By testing them on all mobile phones, and by solving the problems you encounter. But, that’s a useless answer. It’s impossible to test your designs on every mobile phone out there. Within the mobile phone landscape, there are at least ten operating systems (OSs) and fifteen browsers that require consideration. Mobile devices are expensive, and not every web developer can afford to buy five to ten of them. Testing “on all mobile phones” is impossible for most web developers.

In this article, I’ll give you an overview of the mobile web market, as well as phone platforms and their browsers, so that you can decide which mobile devices to test on. Then, we’ll look at how to set up a mobile test bed.

Schnelles Prototyping durch Drag&Drop, komplett klickbare Wireframes, Usability Testing und effiziente Kommunikation im Team - das sind die Möglichkeiten von pidoco°!

Tool to test designs & web pages on multiple browsers automatically

Continuous Deployment isn’t just an abstract theory. At IMVU it’s a core part of our culture to ship. It’s also not a new technique here, we’ve been practicing continuous deployment for years; far longer than I’ve been a member of this startup.

With so many Continuous Integration (CI) servers to choose from, it can be difficult to decide which one is right for you. In the second article of the series Automation for the people, development automation expert Paul Duvall looks at a handful of open source CI servers, including Continuum, CruiseControl, and Luntbuild, using a consistent evaluation criteria and illustrative examples.

After so many shoddy sites, pop-up windows and forced registrations, the truth is that if people don't find your website easy to use, they won't come back. Worse, they'll tell their friends just how clueless you are.

The answer is, of course, to design everything around the needs of your users. We've known this for years, but there's still resistance to even the most basic usability testing.

Nothing else, only testing!