Helping the effort to improve web site usability, UsableNet announced two testing applications, Lift Onsite and Lift Online, at MACWORLD. Lift Onsite is a Mac application which will test your web site for many usability issues that may be present in otherwise good HTML. Using drag and drop, you can take a folder which contains your web site code and submit it to Lift Onsite

We were able to view a demonstration offered by UsableNet CEO Paolo A. Brajnik, where several common problems such as missing ALT tags, self-referencing links, and links which were buried too many levels deep were identified. Lift Onsite will also provide detailed information on the usability impact of the problem it has identified, helping one develop a better site in the future. Plus, it will allow you to fix the problem or edit your HTML on the spot. You can also define your own usability rules.

Lift Online is an online version of the Lift product. Although it lacks the ability to fix or edit the problem on the spot, it does offer the benefit of being able to view the usability of all other sites which have been submitted to Lift Online. This is a great way to find out what the most common usability problems are, so that you can avoid them in the future.

A free demo version of Lift Online is available today. Lift Online, priced at $49 a year, and Lift Onsite, priced at $199, will be available for purchase in September 2000.