PRWD

I’ve recently published an article on the Econsultancy blog discussing handling 1st time customers within checkout, in particular when retailers force 1st time shoppers to register in order to checkout.

One of our clients Speedo handle this very well, by only asking 1st time shoppers if they would like to create a password and set-up their account on the order confirmation page.

The full article on Econsultancy entitled Reduce Checkout Abandonments and Increase Registrations has proved pretty popular, with a big number of comments and lots of advice and recommendations put forward, by both myself and some of the people commenting.

Although as yet not publicably available, our usability benchmarking application is used when I deliver training courses on usability and e-commerce best practice, and over the next month or so we will making an alpha version available publicably.

To give you a sneak preview below is a screenshot from what will be the launch homepage for the application:

“Exit, Voice and Loyalty” is a book, written in 1970 by economist Albert O. Hirschmann. The book attempts to explain two possible responses that individuals (customers, voters and so forth) can make to a service that they find unsatisfactory – ‘exit’ and ‘voice’. ‘Exit‘ is when, for example, a customer decides to stop buying a particular brand of product, visiting a particular restaurant or using a service provider. ‘Voice‘ covers the range of processes that the individual might engage in to communicate their dissatisfaction with the product to the organisation responsible without breaking the relationship (sometimes, as with government-provided services, there is no choice to do so).

What interested Hirschmann was the increasing focus amongst economists and political scientists on measurements of ‘exit’ – market share, sales figures, opinion polls and so forth, and the sidelining of ‘voice’, which is inherently harder to measure. Or, to put it another way, the focus moved to quantitative measurements that could be reduced to figures in a table and away from qualitative measurements of satisfaction and desired improvements. Hirschmann’s view was that whilst Exit is a good way of measuring success and failure for some goods, it should never be the only measurement. The book attempts to explain how to distinguish between scenarios where measurement of Exit makes sense and others where measurement of Voice is more valuable.

So what does this have to do with web usability? Well, we have a similar distinction: when we’re looking at web analytics, we’re measuring Exit. “Did the customer complete the checkout process?” is a question that’s all about Exit, as is “how many visitors did we have last month?”. When we do user testing, we’re measuring Voice: “what does the customer think and what improvements would they like to see?”. This means that the concepts of Exit and Voice are likely to be useful to us in certain circumstances.

One that struck me recently was the fact that sometimes, Exit isn’t an available option. Intranet systems don’t give the user the choice of using a different intranet, so this makes Voice – user feedback – a much more important mechanism of performance measurement and improvement. Monitoring total visitor numbers on an intranet tells you nothing about how well that intranet site performs. Because of this lack of choice, users will persevere with a system and learn to work around its weaknesses. There may be huge pent-up frustration with a system, but no mechanism to express this.

In contrast, large-scale e-commerce operators will pay close attention to the analytics, which typically consists of Exit measurements. Conversion rates are basically a measure of how many (or few) users Exit the process of buying a product. Analytics can’t tell you what those customers are thinking, but it can tell you what effect this has on your sales figures. Indeed, for competitive e-commerce sites, it’s sometimes better to trust what people do on your site than what they say about it (economists call this ‘revealed preferences’). It’s possible for people taking part in user testing to suggest ideas that they think might be useful at the time, but which don’t really make sense outside of the testing environment.

Finally, Hirschmann also devoted the final chapters of his book to the concept of ‘Loyalty’, explaining why sometimes some people will stick with an inferior service or tolerate declining quality of goods even when better alternatives exist. This is a lot more complicated to evaluate, but it’s also very relevant to usability; for example, it explains why Amazon can get away with breaking the usability rules but their newer competitors can’t. In some situations, for example internal company intranets, the ‘loyalty’ that staff feel towards their organisation or their team might make them less critical of a poor site than they should be.

In summary, these concepts are a useful way of thinking about the usability of different types of systems. If it’s an intranet, user testing and feedback is essential, because you’re not going to get changes in market share to tell you when you’re doing badly. For high-traffic sites or e-commerce, analytics is the first place to look for information about potential usability issues. When looking at any website or system, it’s useful to start by asking which feedback mechanisms are likely to deliver the most benefit, and Hirschmann’s concepts of Exit and Voice are a great way to do that.

User Testing

An integral part of gaining end user insights into how well (or poorly) a website, intranet or application has been designed, user testing can be carried out in 3 main ways.

• Laboratory User Testing – this is the traditional approach which involves using a testing ‘lab’ which has a one-sided mirror, video recording facilities, a viewing area and other more advanced features
• Guerilla User Testing – this is simpler type of testing which doesn’t involve special labs, equipment and facilities, and is suitable for when there is very limited budget and you want to gain first hand insights from people using your website/application to carry out certain key tasks and and objectives
• Real Time User Testing (during one-to-one interviews) – this is typically carried out as part of meeting staff within an organisation when you are reviewing a company intranet

We have spoke about guerilla user testing at the How Do event last year, on 3 key ways in which you can improve online performance.

For more information on real time user testing, read on…

User Research and One-to-one Interviews

There are many reasons that you would want to speak to either customers, website visitors or employees in a one-to-one style interview, and all of them revolve around attempting to understand the opinions and recommendations from the people that matter most.

Gaining the most valuable and meanignful insights isn’t always straightforward, particularly when the person you are speaking to has never previously been asked for their opinions and ideas. This is especially true when speaking to staff within an organisation, whether you are looking to improve production processes, improve efficiency on the shop floor, or as is often the case with ourselves, reviewing a company intranet.

If you find yourself carrying out one-to-one interviews for whatever reason, you might like to take a look at a recent blog post of 5 tips when conducting user research.

To save you a click the 5 tips are:

1. Give the person you are speaking to the confidence that their input is truly valued
2. Give the person your full attention – keep your head up!
3. Ask open, probing questions
4. Bring the user research to life by incorporating user testing
5. Don’t rely on first impressions

Summary

Of course we are just scratching the surface to user testing and user research activities, but hopefully it has been of use. Of course get in touch with us if you would like more information or are considering these types of activities.

PRWD

Whether its referred to as user research, customer research, field studies, qualititive research or one of the other terms used, finding out the wants and needs of people who use websites, intranets and software is a crucial part of designing usable solutions which deliver return-on-investment.

Here I want to share with you 5 tips when conducting this type of one-to-one research:

1) Give the person you are speaking to the confidence that their input is truly valued

Many people, especially those who have never taken part in this type of research before, think that there input won’t be valuable, for any number of reasons. This could include:

• they don’t use the website or system often
• they have never done this type of activity before
• they have never been asked for their opinion before
• they don’t feel their role is very important, so why would their opinions be important

We tend to give people cofidence in these situations by:

• explaining to them the approach that the user research is taking
• re-iterate during the meeting how valuable their views and insights are
• explain that this isn’t just a one-off experience and that gaining input from people such as themselves is a fundamental part to the website or intranet improvement process going forward
• ask whether they would like to be involved in further elements of the research and design process

It can be quite remarkable experiencing a persons confidence grow, from at the start where they are very apprehensive and introverted to becoming very passionate and open to sharing their views.

2) Give the person your full attention – keep your head up!

Rather than try and carry out the face-to-face meeting as well as making notes throughout on the key points being made, simply voice record the meeting (asking permission first of course) to allow you to give the person your full attention.

Benefits of voice recording the meeting include:

• the conversation is much more natural
• it ensures you will never miss a vital piece of feedback whilst you are making a note of a previous comment
• you are paying much more attention to what the person is saying, which in turns helps you think of which questions and prompts should follow next
• the person feels fully engaged rather than looking at the top of your head for parts of the meeting
• if you to choose to quote the person in the research report and findings work you do after, you ensure the quote is 100% accurate and note based on your notes

A few things to consider on voice recording meetings:

• if like us, due to the sheet amount of valuable insights and comments that each meeting contains, you choose to get full transcriptions of each meeting, this is a very time consuming exercise and one which we definetly recommend you outsource
• you may also be thinking of video recording the meetings, especially if (as I will come on to later) you also use these meetings to carry out user testing. You need to be aware that this will usually highten the sense of apprehension for the person which can affect their confidence in fully engaging with the process

3) Ask open, probing questions

Being asked to share your views on a particular website or company intranet is very much a one-off scenario (unless of course you are adopting a true user-centered design approach and will be engaging with that person throughout the design and development process). However familiar with a system the person is, it takes certain types of questions to get people to open up and share the types of insights that will be of most value in your research.

Typical questions we might ask include:

• Can you describe the reasons why you typically [add in different user scenarios]?
• Can you explain the approach you tend to take when [add in different user scenarios]?
• What improvements do you think would make your job/experience easier and more effective?
• At [add in various areas of the website or intranet], what information are you looking for and why?
• Can you explain a situation where you haven’t been able to find what you are looking for, and what have been your next steps?

It is vital that your questionning doesn’t lead the person down a particular route on purpose – the more natural and open ended you make the questionning the more likely you are of gaining really valuable insights.

4) Bring the user research to life by incorporating user testing

Providing the research you are doing is for an existing website or company intranet, bring a greater degree of engagement and value to the research by incorporating user testing into the meeting.

Website testing or system testing, not user testing
Its vital to stress at this point that when you explain about this to the person, you are clear that you are wanting to test the usability and effectiveness of the website or system, not their capabilities or ability to remember where certain information is.

Key points when incorporating testing to user research:

• avoid the temptation to use a lab testing environment – let the user work in their own comfortable surroundings, whether this is at home or at their desk at work
• don’t let the person blame themself if they are having trouble with a particular task for a scenario
• plan ahead with typical scenarios, and be as descriptive as possible
• ensure that the scenarios you are asking them to experience have some correlation to their potential wants and needs
• explain about the importance of them adopting the think out load approach, which you need for both your own benefit during the meeting but more importantly for when the voice recording is transcribed
• once it is clear they are unable to complete a task at a certain point, prompt them in the right direction and then let them continue on with their think out loud approach

5) Don’t rely on first impressions

Quite often the person that you are speaking to immediately makes it clear that they know their input won’t be very useful. This can be for a number of reasons:

• they only ever use a very small element of the website or intranet, and that can be explained in a matter of seconds
• they hardly ever use the website or intranet
• they are against change within their organisation and so they aren’t wanting to disrupt anything
• they dismiss the very fact that you are asking for their feedback, and are apprehensive that what they say will make any difference or actually be used to actually make improvements

This where the first four tips all come in to play – by giving confidence to the person, providing your full attention, asking probing questions and bringing the session to life by letting them use the website/intranet for themself, you will often find that the people who on first impressions seem to be offering the least amount of valuable feedback actually turn out the complete opposite.

Summary

User research is a highly valuable way of gaining end user insights, but it isn’t something that comes easily. There are many elements to carrying out successful user research and I hope these tips will come in useful for people who are already carrying this type of research, or who are considering it.

Further reading

You may also like to take a look at some of these related articles and presentations.

• article – top 8 business benefits of user testing
• presentation slides – 3 tips to improving online performance (step 1 is on gorilla user testing)
• video interviews – Royal Mail interviewing me on tips for good usability
• article – using the power of crowds to test your call to actions

PRWD provided a knowledgeable insight into website visitor behaviour and put forward suggested improvements for our online quote service that were then proven to be effective through live testing. Conversions have improved since not only in volume but also in quality and we are very happy with the result.

Steve Wilde, Managing Director, The Translation People

Project Background

During 2008 and early 2009, The Translation People, one of the UK’s leading translation services businesses had made significant investments in their website, developing a modern, interactive site which is designed to act as a significant lead generation channel, via an online quotation form. In addition marketing budget is invested each month in both natural and paid search to increase the number of visitors the website receives.

In June 2009 Steve Wilde, Managing Director at The Translation People, attended a conference in Liverpool aimed at helping business owners identify opportunities where they can improve the profitability of their businesses. It was at this event that Paul Rouke, User Experience Director of PRWD, delivered a presentation entitled ‘Three Steps To Improving Online Performance’ and it was through this event that the idea of improving the on-site conversion rate of The Translation People website was first discussed.

Objectives

As with almost all serious businesses, The Translation People were investing each month to drive more traffic to their website, although they had never invested money in actually improving the conversion rate of their website. This led to expected scepticism as to the potential value of investing in a project to improve the on-site conversion rate.

PRWD and The Translation People agreed on the following two objectives for the project:

1. Deliver an improvement to the conversion rate for visitors arriving on the website and then submitting an online quotation
2. Provide the business case for making continual monthly improvements to the conversion rate of the website

What We Did

Expert Usability Evaluation

We provided an initial expert evaluation of the existing online quotation facility, providing recommended changes which we expected would help improve the visitor conversion rate.

Analytics Evaluation and Improvement

We also evaluated their web analytics account to determine how well their website was performing for their key target audience, a process called advanced traffic segmentationwhich is one of the topics covered in our Advanced Google Analytics Training Course.

Design Alternative Conversion Pages

Following the expert evaluation, we designed alternative versions of the online quotation form which utilised various key elements which we felt would lead to an increase in the number of visitors completing the form.

Split Testing To Improve Conversion Rate

Over the course of five weeks we then implemented a series of split tests using Google Website Optimiser, where we tested two alternative versions of the online quotation form to determine which version delivered a greater conversion rate.

Following each test the version which performed better was used in the subsequent test, and this continual improvement process was continued during the five weeks.

Results

Over a seven week period The Translation People saw:

• On-site conversion improved by 86%
• Cost per acquisition reduced by 44%
• Adwords performance improved by 172%

More Information

If you are would you like to increase the number of sales or leads your website delivers, please give us a call on 0161 918 6729.

Do You Use Google Analytics?

If you are using Google Analytics you might also like to read more about our Advanced Google Analytics Training Course. Recent clients have included Speedy Hire and VoucherSeeker, one of the UK’s leading voucher code websites.

Thanks to a post on landing page optimisation by the irrepressible Avinash Kaushik from Google, I’ve recently discovered Fivesecondtest, a free web application which lets you very quickly gain insights from web users on individual screengrabs.

Having tweeted about how good it is and then subsequently having the usefulness of the application questioned, as a follow up to my responses (clarity of proposition, targeted landing page, key conversion pages) I thought it would be worthwhile providing a bit more meat on the bones.

The meat comes in the form of this post on Econsultancy titled – Take five seconds to test your call to action and USP.

This fairly comprehensive post covers areas including:

• what is the application
• how does it work
• why use it
• examples of what you can test and possible objectives
• benefits of this type of testing
• notes to bear in mind
• plus questions to people with differing roles and responsibilities who might find it useful

Take a look at my article and feel free to make any comments, either here or on the Econsultancy post.

This is an un-answered question for many businesses, and one we always look to answer as part of on-going conversion optimisation services.

In a recent phase 1 project with translation services company The Translation People, through the use of advanced segments in Google Analytics we were very quickly able to to identify that only 10% of their existing site visitors were likely to convert.

I have provided a more in-depth look at this specific scenario on an advanced segmentation article I have published on Econsultancy.

If I had to sum up this post with one line of business advice it would be this:

never consider making commercial decisions when you look at your web analytic stats before you apply some segmentation to remove visitors never likely to convert.

Econsultancy have published a new usability article of mine entitled:
Pureplay and high street fashion retailers – who values usability more?

In the article I’ve taken a look at the following high street and pureplay retailers from a usability perspective…

The pureplay fashion retailers I’ve taken a look at are:

• ASOS
• Net-a-porter
• My Wardrobe
• The Outnet
• Koodos

The high street fashion retailers I’ve taken a look at are:

• Harvey Nichols
• Miss Selfridge
• Topshop
• Next
• New Look

The five questions I posed to each of these retailers are:

1. How seriously are they taking cross-selling and up-selling in order to encourage higher average order values?
2. Do they make standard delivery costs clear before you get into the actual checkout process?
3. Are payment options and cards accepted clear prior to checking out?
4. Have they enclosed their checkout as a way of potentially reducing checkout process abandonments?
5. Do they provide clear customer service contact details during the checkout process?

Take a look at the article and see how these retailers stack up!

If you are a fashion retailer you might also like to read about the Online Fashion 100 event on the 17th June in London, organised by Leon Bailey-Green.

I’ve just uploaded my presentation from yesterdays enjoyable How Do conference in Liverpool, titled ‘Speeding Up In A Slowdown’. For information you can see details of the conference and speaker line-up, including a keynote from Google.

My 35 minute presentation (shown below) focused on 3 key areas that businesses need to consider if they want to make serious improvements to their online performance, and all on working with smaller budgets than what they would have had pre-recession:

• Understanding visitors – using gorilla user testing to actually begin understanding what visitors want and why they don’t complete their objectives
• Measuring performance – its not good enough to just have analytics installed on your site, you need to be looking at goals, funnels and developing advanced segments to truly begin understanding visitor behaviour
• Testing and improving – using split testing to make continual, incremental improvements to conversion rates, click-throughs from key pages and overal website performance