You have spent hours developing your website, you think everything is perfect and clear to use. But how do you know that the user is going to use the site the way you intended them to? Often we get so close to our work that we aren't able to see the flaws that may exist. Usability testing of your website is an important aspect of developing and maintaining an effective site. It gives you a different perspective on whether your users are actually using your site they way you intended them to.
Here are 3 ways to conduct usability testing, the method you use depends on your specific needs and budget, that will help you with your conversion optimization efforts.
FOCUS GROUPS
Bringing in a group of people to usability test your website as part of a focus group, is one of the best ways to obtain valuable feedback from your users. Focus group agencies are available to gather together a group of participants who are pre-screened to your qualifications. The sessions are typically conducted at an agency's headquarters where participants are brought into a room to conduct a series of tests while the website owner watches behind a two-way mirror. The person conducting the group can ask a series of questions while you listen to the feedback. You also have a chance to communicate with the person conducting the group to guide them ask follow up questions, to get more clarification on an answer.
CLICK TRACKING
Click Tracking is software that can be set up to track where your users are clicking. It can help by showing you possible flaws in your system. For example, after looking at your site for extended periods of time, you may not realize that a clickable button or link on your site, means something else to your users. Or maybe you are trying to direct your users to a certain location to click and they are not clicking on it as much as you expect them to. This can be very detrimental to your business especially when it comes to your advertisers.
EYE TRACKING
Eye tracking is a relatively new concept in usability testing. It is a software which can be hooked up to a participant to see where they are looking on your site when giving a series of tasks. The results will be present to you as "hot spots" on a screenshot of a particular page. It shows where the users attention was drawn to without including the information of where they would click after thinking about it. This method can assist you greatly in moving clickable links or buttons to the location where the user first looks.
IN THE END
By using these basic tests, you will gain valuable insight into how visitors to your sight interact with your content. Once you have this basic information gathered, you will be ready to work on improving your landing page design so that it avoids any of the challenges you have discovered in your research.
Bringing in a group of people to usability test your website as part of a focus group, is one of the best ways to obtain valuable feedback from your users. Focus group agencies are available to gather together a group of participants who are pre-screened to your qualifications. The sessions are typically conducted at an agency's headquarters where participants are brought into a room to conduct a series of tests while the website owner watches behind a two-way mirror. The person conducting the group can ask a series of questions while you listen to the feedback. You also have a chance to communicate with the person conducting the group to guide them ask follow up questions, to get more clarification on an answer.
CLICK TRACKING
Click Tracking is software that can be set up to track where your users are clicking. It can help by showing you possible flaws in your system. For example, after looking at your site for extended periods of time, you may not realize that a clickable button or link on your site, means something else to your users. Or maybe you are trying to direct your users to a certain location to click and they are not clicking on it as much as you expect them to. This can be very detrimental to your business especially when it comes to your advertisers.
EYE TRACKING
Eye tracking is a relatively new concept in usability testing. It is a software which can be hooked up to a participant to see where they are looking on your site when giving a series of tasks. The results will be present to you as "hot spots" on a screenshot of a particular page. It shows where the users attention was drawn to without including the information of where they would click after thinking about it. This method can assist you greatly in moving clickable links or buttons to the location where the user first looks.
IN THE END
By using these basic tests, you will gain valuable insight into how visitors to your sight interact with your content. Once you have this basic information gathered, you will be ready to work on improving your landing page design so that it avoids any of the challenges you have discovered in your research.
ABOUT
Olivia Jones is an Internet marketer and contributing writer for Invesp, a conversion optimization company that helps clients improve their landing page design so that it will convert more users into customers.
