UX in digital marketing can be very powerful. By learning how real users interact with your websites, you can tweak and streamline the process to increase conversion rates! Today we are going to give you our best usability testing tips to make the whole process smoother and more effective!
All the UI/UX design tips in the world won’t weigh as much as the data gathered from real user testing.
If done right, usability testing can:
- Avoid costly mistakes down the line.
- Settle time-consuming debates regarding design, content, copy, etc. You just have to test and see what works best in the real world.
- Improve initial conversions and repeat orders. If your website has a frictionless user experience, it is much more likely that users will return to use it again and again.
- Boost word-of-mouth. Everyone wants their friends and family to have a good time. That’s why word of your reputation as having a solid painless user experience will spread organically.
So let the facts dictate your next move! Let’s jump straight into our usability testing tips!
Usability Testing Tip #1 – Implement A Testing Loop
Oftentimes the best way to improve conversions isn’t to do a big fancy total redesign or to set up testing for the whole website.
Here is a sustainable, cheap, and effective alternative in just a few steps:
- Open Google Analytics and browse your website’s data.
- Identify the page where most people exit the website OR the page with the highest bounce rate (5-20 seconds of page time per session is appropriate. Anything lower can be attributed to misclicks).
- Narrow down the issue. You can do this by using Microsoft Clarity to get session videos where you see real people attempting to achieve a task on your page. You can then identify the roadblocks yourself or have the participants describe their thought processes. This can be done either during the video or in a survey afterward.
- Test possible solutions with A/B testing. You can use a tool such as Google Optimize to create variations of your page that will be presented to a small percentage of your usual traffic. Even though it is called A/B testing, we would recommend making between 1-4 variations depending on how much traffic you have on the page to ensure that you achieve statistical relevance in a reasonable time span. Moreover, you should understand the difference between A/B and multivariate testing. A/B tests will change one thing and present the options to users, while multivariate testing involves changing multiple things on the page. While multivariate testing has its place, we usually suggest sticking with A/B testing since it can better help you pinpoint the exact change that leads to higher conversion rates.
Usability Testing Tip #2 – Employ Different Types Of Tests
A variety of tests will better help you understand different aspects of your web pages and how people interact with them. Make sure to use them at every stage of production. The most valuable stages are pre-production (since it gives you a better sense of the direction you should go with your project) and, more importantly, once the website is live (since this gives you the closest result to real use cases).
- Five Second Test. Show someone your design for five seconds and ask them questions like: “What do you think the website is about?” or “What items did you see on the page?” The answers will help you understand if you have made the design clear enough. If you note the order in which people write the items they saw, you can check if you got the visual hierarchy right. That is because the first things they write will be the ones that had the most impact on them.
- First Click Test. Ask someone to complete a task (“Where would you click to find more information about that product/sign up for our newsletter?”). After overlaying sufficient results, you will be left with a heatmap, showing where everybody clicked. This is a powerful visual aid to determine whether your design is doing its job properly.
- Keyword Test. Show your design to users and ask them to rate it according to a specific word. “On a scale from 1 to 5, would you agree that this design is friendly/trustworthy/informative/inviting?” This will help you better understand the feelings people have toward your design.
Usability Testing Tip #3 – Get Technology On Your Side
To perform the tests outlined above quickly and effectively, you should look into what cutting-edge marketing technology has to offer.
We are always keeping up to date with this topic, and have talked about some of the best tools for the job in a previous blog post.
You will see more details on some tools already mentioned here, like Google Optimize, as well as others like Visual Website Optimizer and Convert.
Final Words On Usability Testing Tips
We hope that our usability testing tips have given you a map of how to go about supercharging this vital aspect of your business without falling into hidden pitfalls.
Remember, you don’t have to devote a lot of time and money to large-scale sophisticated tests. Some testing is always better than no testing! And if that testing is done according to our usability testing tips, it will surely uncover the right path toward conversion optimization.
Are you still unsure that our advice can help you create a stellar user experience strategy?
As experts in UX and marketing, we are constantly using our decades-long experience to help businesses scale and thrive online.
If you have any questions or trouble implementing the strategies outlined above or are looking for even more usability testing tips, don’t hesitate to contact us right here.
We will schedule a call right away to discuss all the ways in which we can leverage technology and solid usability testing tips to help your business scale to its true potential!
We’re looking forward to hearing from you and learning all about your business!
