Category Archives: IKEA Effect

IKEA Effect, Inattentional blindness, Online card sorting, Usability research

How To Do Usability Testing To Improve Conversions

4th April 2016 nealcole

Why Should You Do Usability Testing?

To create a relatively pain free user experience on any website
or app it is essential that you carry out some usability research of your user interface. Sure, you can ask a few people around the office to check out your new site, but it is also important to get feedback from users who do not work in ecommerce and are not connected to your business.

Psychology tells us that as we concentrate on a task or project we are prone to see what we expect to see because our visual cortex unconsciously takes the decision to filter out things that it regards as less important to achieving a task. This is why we often miss the most obvious mistakes if we proof read our own work.

We also get too close to our pet projects and as a result we overvalue the things we create, which if often called the IKEA effect. As a result we are not the best people to evaluate websites that we helped to create. Anyone connected to your business may also suffer from some of the same biases or may just not want to hurt your feelings.

Image of lady lying on the ground next to laptop — Source: Freeimages.com

Testing is not about proving or disproving something works or not. It is about informing decisions and giving you insights into how users interact with your website. If you need a definitive answer then you really should be conducting an A/B test. As I pointed out in another post on whether usability research is reflecting real behaviour all research is subject to bias and limitations.

When Should You test?

Image of ink drawing of the of chairs outside a cafe — Source: Freeimages.com

The earlier you do some usability testing the better as this will allow you to respond to user feedback at each step in the development and design process. Wire frames, prototypes or even drawings can be tested to give you useful feedback before you move onto finished designs. Don’t use focus groups as usability research needs to deal with one user at a time. Otherwise people can get distracted by what other people are doing and you also need to give them your full attention. It is important that you observe and listen to users and avoid asking questions as people will over-think their behaviour if asked to explain it.

How Should You Test?

Image of an office with a laptop — Source: Freeimages.com

Steve Krug has written an awesome book, Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Voices That Matter), which I highly recommend you read. He advocates doing your own usability research if you can. Undoubtedly this is a great idea if you have the time and the equipment. If you have no or very little budget you might as well do this as even one user test is better than none.

However, there are also some affordable online services available, some of which are free. The benefit here is that they can manage all the admin and recruitment for you, plus conduct the usability testing and if required do the analysis. All you have to do is agree the brief. I would still recommend you get videos of your usability tests as you will often learn more from watching people browse your site than from reading a report. A video brings it to life in a way a report cannot.

One other advantage is that such suppliers offer a range of solutions including remote usability testing, card sorting for developing your navigation, tree testing to evaluate how easy it is find content on a site and eye-tracking to identify where on page attention is drawn to. Such suppliers can also use their expertise to advise you on how to best design a usability study.

Who Should You Recruit?

Image of young women on a laptop computer — Source: Freeimages.com

Some solutions offer you the ability to serve pop-ups on your site to recruit your own visitors to complete specific tasks. You can then share screens using Skype or other web meeting tools to observe how successful they are at achieving the set task. Alternatively many suppliers offer the option to recruit testers who match your user demographics.

Don’t get too obsessed though with matching your target audience as usability testing is about understanding how people in general interact with your site. Setting very strict recruitment criteria will just increases the cost and time needed to conduct the testing without adding much value to the outcome.

12 Usability Solutions:

1. Loop11: Online usability testing with your first project free (up to 5 tasks and 2 questions). Covers over 40 languages, provides heatmaps and clickstream analysis, real-time reporting, and you can

test on mobile devices.

Pricing: A Free usability test is available for new customers. Pay as you go costs $350 per project. All plans include 1,000 participants per project, unlimited tasks and questions, testing on mobile, real-time results and 24/7 email support.

The Micro plan costs $158 a month and is designed for organisations with between 1 and 10 employees, plus for non-profits and public sector clients. The SMB plan costs $410 per month and is for 11 to 100 employees. The Enterprise plan is priced at $825 per month.

2. Try My UI: Remote user testing which provides videos of visitors undertaking set tasks on your website. You also get written answers to questions you set. Get your first test for Free – normally costs $35.

Pricing: The Personal plan charges $35 per test credit. A desktop test requires 1 credit, whilst a mobile test costs 2 credits. Includes up to 20 minutes of video and audio feedback, written responses to custom survey questions and the ability to analyse your results with tagged, time stamped annotations.

The Team plan costs $299 per month. This gives you 10 credits per month, testing with your own users for one month, multi-user login, collaborative video annotation, crowd sourced key insights with the UXCrowd, UX diagnostics and the ability to download your video results and test data.

The Enterprise plan is not priced on the website. However, this
includes 100 test credits per month, unlimited testing with your own users, extended 30-minute length for test results and one-click report generation integrated with video playback.

3. UsabilityHub: UsabilityHub have a great selection of simple but effective usability solutions. You can obtain first impressions of your mock-ups and designs, see where visitors want to click or discover how easy visitors find it to navigate your website.

Simply upload an image, and select the type of test you’d like
to run. You can choose from:

Five Second Test to understand people’s first impressions of
your design.
Click Test to find out where they click and how they interact
with your interface
Navigation flow test to identify how visitors navigate around your
website or applications.
Question Test – allows you to conduct fast surveys by uploading an image and asking users questions about the design.

You can then decide how many people you want to be in the test or even recruit your own testers. UsabilityHub then create a report showing a detailed breakdown of the interactions each tester had with your design.

Pricing: Responses from testers you recruit are free. Testers recruited by UsabilityHub cost 1 credit each and responses from
testers of specific demographics cost 3 credits each.

The Free Community plan allows you to create unlimited
tests, with responses from your own users being free and buy responses from UsabilityHub from $1 each.

The UsabilityHub Pro plan costs $99 a month and allows you to
buy responses at 50% off all credit purchases, starting at just 50 cents per response. Create unlimited tests, customize the test experience with messaging and redirection after the test, use a single link for multiple tests in a row and target particular demographics.

4. Usability Sciences: Established over 25 years ago Usability Sciences offers a full managed service for usability testing, offering a comprehensive range of solutions including card sorting, rapid iterative testing, mobile & tablet user testing and eye-tracking research.

Pricing: No prices shown on the website.

5. Usability Tools: These guys provide a suite of tools to optimize your website and improve the user experience. By adding a snippet of JavaScript to your website you can also access a visual analytics tool to view browser recordings of customers interacting with your site. In addition Usability Tools allows you to:

Find out about the first impressions on your content.
Create scenario-based tasks to reveal improvement opportunities.
Implement surveys to get Voice Of the Customer data.
Build and improve your websites navigation with card sorting.

The Conversion suite provides insights to generate ideas for A/B testing and identify areas for improvement. This includes:

Understand how your visitors see your website.
Learn how your visitors interact on your web forms.
See your website from your users’ perspective.

Pricing: 14 day Free trial and plan prices available on request.

6. UserBob: Watch videos of real users talking about what they think as they use your website. UserBob recruits people to visit your website. Set a scenario for the user and specify a task for them to attempt to complete. The user then goes to your website and tries to complete your task. During their visit they record their screen and voice as they think out loud about the experience. You then receive a copy of the video to learn about what users say about your site.

You decide how many users you need, what demographics match your visitors, and how long each one should spend on your website. The test is instantly made available for users to participate and you will normally have a video to review within a few hours.

Pricing: Start at just $10 for First Impressions where 10 users
will spend one minute each on your website. Users will discuss their first impressions of your website, who they think it is for and what you can do on the site. Task Completion costs $20 for 5 users who spend 4 minutes attempting to complete your task. The price of the Custom test is variable. This involves between 1 to 10 users each spending up to 8 minutes with a specific scenario and user task to complete. You may also specify user demographics for Custom
tests.

7. userlytics: Omni-channel user experience testing. Will supply user testers from their panel or recruit to your specific demographic requirements. Alternatively you can recruit participants using a customisable invitation widget, by posting a link on blogs, websites, twitter, by using TaskRabbit, Mechanical Turk, Craiglist or by using a third party panel provider.

Userlytics allows you to test prototypes, videos, mobile apps,
display ads, search and social behaviour, desktop and web applications, smart-phones and tablets and websites.

Pricing: Starts from $49 per user tester and depends upon the
testing features you require, whether you need respondents recruiting, demographic needs, session length and reporting requirements.

8. User Testing: Get videos in an hour of real people
speaking their thoughts as they use your website, apps, prototypes and more. Do it yourself or access User Testing’s on-demand panel of over one million users to find an exact match of your target audience.

You can either select your users and write your own tasks or use
the expect research team to complete such tasks as creating and managing tests, long term research road-mapping, moderating tests, annotating videos, analysing videos to identify key findings and creating research presentations.

Pricing: Basic plan starts at $49 per video for the first 10 videos, and then rises to $99 per video. This will provide you with video and
audio of your site or app being used across a full range of devices, 15 minute maximum video length and a storage limit of 25 videos.

The Pro plan offers a Free trial and quote on request. This allows for a maximum video length of 60 minutes, unlimited video storage, screening and video demographic filters, moderated usability testing, competitive benchmarking, user testing with your own customers, highlight reels, customer experience customer experience analytics and for the research team to summarise key findings.

9. UserTest.io: This is a similar platform to UserTesting.com but is less expensive. You receive recordings of your users completing set tasks whilst they voice their thoughts and opinions out loud. UserTest allows for rapid testing and provides actionable insights without breaking the bank.

Prices start from £10 per test for your own testers and £18 a test for UserTest.io’s qualified testers. There is also an enterprise solution in association with User Conversion.

10. Peek from User Testing: Get a Free 5 minute video of a real person using your site.

11. UserZoom: An all-in-one integrated SasS customer and
user experience research and analytical solution. They provide a suite of services including recruiting participants for user tests, and research software for mobile and desktop devices, voice of the customer studies, remote usability testing, UX design tools (e.g. card sorting & tree testing) and an online survey tool. In addition they provide support services from defining a study to analysing the data for you.

Pricing: Annual software subscription starts at £19,000 per year.
All quotes are customised according your individual requirements and dependent upon the number of user accounts and use of premium features (e.g. UserZoom Recorder and mobile testing capabilities).

12. WhatUsersDo: Videos of users speaking their thoughts
using your website, app or prototype. Participants describe their impressions as they complete agreed tasks and these are recorded together with their screens and mouse movements into online videos. UX experts then analyse and summarise into high, medium or low UX reports.

Support provided includes planning and designing the tasks for
participants to complete. User testers can either be selected from their international panel covering the UK, USA, Germany, France and The Netherlands or you can use on demand third party panels. You may also invite your own customer base with the Private Panel feature.

A managed service offering is available which covers the WhatUsersDo research platform, instant access to an online panel from over nine countries and UX experts to handle your research and deliver insight reports.

Pricing: Pay as you go starts form just £30 + VAT per user and
includes tag videos, ability to download videos, download clips and PDF reports (including video). Prepaid Test Pack starts from £300 + VAT and provide for more cost effective user testing than the pay as you go plan.

Prepaid plans: All plans include design and scoping support from
UX specialists, expert analysis of results, and account management and email and phone support.

The Starter plan costs £10,000 per year for 50 video test
credits (1 credit = 1 completed video). The Repeat plan costs £20,000 for 100 video credits and the Regular plan is £30,000 per year for 150 video credits. An Enterprise plan is also available with 200 video credits – price available on request.

Thank you for reading my post. If you found it useful please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

You can view my full Digital Marketing and Optimization Toolbox here.

To browse links to all my posts on one page please click here.About the author: Neal provides digital optimisation consultancy services and has worked for brands such as Deezer.com, Foxybingo.com, Very.co.uk, partypoker.com and Bgo.com.

Neal has had articles published on website optimisation on Usabilla.com and as an ex-research and insight manager on the GreenBook Blog research website. If you wish to contact Neal please send an email to neal.cole@conversion-uplift.co.uk. You can follow Neal on Twitter @northresearch, see his LinkedIn profile or connect on Facebook.

A/B Testing, Anchoring, Behavioural Economics, Endowment Effect, IKEA Effect, Reciprocation, Scarcity, Website Optimization

17 Psychological Tips To Boost Your Conversion Rate.

11th April 2012 nealcole

Image of mri-head scan — Source: Freeimages.com

How To Apply Psychology To Website Optimization:

Persuasive website content that utilises psychological triggers can help you significantly improve website conversion. Outlined below are 17 ways you can use such techniques to more effectively engage your visitors to increase your conversions.

1. Ownership focuses our attention on what we might lose!

Image of Amazon Prime 30-day free trial offer

Even partial ownership (e.g. a trial subscription) tends to make people more attached to what they have and make them focus on what they may lose rather than what they may gain. Ownership changes our perception of things and our aversion to loss makes it difficult for us to give it up.

A great example of this is Amazon Prime which offers a 30-day free for unlimited streaming of moves and TV shows. This combines the power of FREE, that we cover later, with a limited trial that makes customers focus on what they will lose if they cancel their subscription. Try testing different trial promotions, or give more prominence to money-back guarantees, cooling-off periods (for financial services) and ease of returns for large or expensive items.

2. We are motivated by meaningful tasks and acknowledgement of our effort!

Image pop-up for when Buffer is full for free plan

None of us like to think our effort is meaningless and we all appreciate positive feedback. Visitors want to know that any information you request from them is essential and not just for your benefit. People also like feedback to confirm they have successfully completed tasks (e.g. registration or add to basket) as this reassures and motivates them to continue.

Buffer congratulates you when you you’ve completely filled your free plan with posts. But it also uses it as an opportunity to promote upgrading to Awesome subscription plan.

For registration and sign-up forms remove any fields that are not absolutely necessary and try different words or phrases to explain why each piece of information is required. Also test different ways or congratulating customers when they have completed a task or journey.

3. Everything is relative!

Image of Hotjar.com pricing options

People find it difficult to make new decisions and like to compare things that are simple to compare (e.g. one LED TV against another LED TV). Until a person has made such a comparison they often don’t understand there own preferences or know what they want. Giving just two very different options will make it difficult for people to choose. They have nothing to compare either option with and they may not select your preferred option.

This is why sales people will often show you a premium option, a medium option and a value option that appears inferior. They know most people will choose the middle option. So by testing different alternatives on a given page may allow you to nudge visitors towards your preferred option. This could be different subscription options or alternative targeted content (e.g. recently viewed/wish list items etc).

4. The first time we go to purchase is critical for the price we are willing to pay!

Image of Survata's plans with prices

Once a price has been established in our minds it will largely determine our perception of current and future prices. Sensitivity to price changes is heavily influenced by our memory of the prices we have previously paid or seen.

When launching a new product if you can associate it with a premium category you are more likely to be able to charge a premium price. You should always show your most expensive plan first as this helps create the highest possible anchor price. Test different ways of presenting prices, change the location of the price, and see if by offering a premium alternative you can boost sales without having to make large price reductions.

5. The power of FREE!

Image of Neflix free for a month offer — Netflix – “Join free for a month” offer

The impact of offering something for FREE is often underestimated. People are afraid of loss and because of this FREE is a powerful motivator. As a result consumers will often perceive a FREE offer as substantially more valuable than it really is.

This can result in the cost of offering something for FREE being easily outweighed by the benefit from an uplift in conversion. Alternatively, if you offer a free benefit as part of your proposition that perhaps your competitors don’t, then try testing the impact of promoting this as a FREE benefit of your service. But whatever you do don’t mention how much it actually costs.

6. Scarcity makes us value things more!

Image of Booking.com with scarcity indicators — Booking.com scarcity indicators include “Booked x times today” and “Only x rooms left”.

People value things that are scarce partly because they are loss averse. We are particularly motivated if we believe that we are in competition with other people to purchase a scare item. This is why eBay auctions can get out of hand and we end up paying far more than we originally planned for an item.

Stock level indicators (e.g. number of rooms left, low stock, number of items remaining, bids etc) are powerful drivers of conversion. Scarcity is used everywhere online, including hotel and flight booking sites, flash sales, exclusive pre-sale registration, offer ending soon, and limited edition item.

Booking.com is especially good at using scarcity. As well as showing the number of rooms left, the site also shows the number of times a room has been booked today and for locations with high demand a further message is displayed (see below). They key thing here is to Test, test and test!

Image from Booking.com showing location has high demand

7. We are more motivated by a cause than by money!

Image of Tesco.com communities — Tesco.com Communities including Cancer Research UK Race for Life food partner

People are much more willing to spend time and effort for a cause than for money. This is because social norms are much more powerful motivators than cash. Research has shown that focusing on money can result in more independent and selfish behaviour and a reluctance to be involved or help others. People who believe in cause are much more passionate and more willing to offer to help others.

It can be advantageous to align your brand or site with relevant good causes as it helps to build loyalty. However, taking such an approach often needs to be part of a long-term commitment to a cause as people can react negatively if you chop and change according to short-term business needs. If you do go down this route focus on the material benefits to the good cause (e.g. Computers for Schools vouchers) rather than the actual value. Test different methods of giving to good causes to understand which most engage with your customers.

8. The power reciprocation!

image of Copyblogger.com site and free resources

We feel obliged to the future repayment of favours, gifts, good deeds and the like. Organisations can use this social norm to their advantage provided they offer help, free resources, advice or samples without obligation.

Online video guides are becoming the norm, but other ways to benefit from this rule include online tools and planners, free smartphone Apps, money off coupons and how to guides. The skill here is to find something that really catches the imagination of your customers so that they value it so much that they almost feel obliged to maintain their relationship with you.

9. Sex sells!

Image of beautiful woman on Beaverbrooks.co.uk

Great images of beautiful people grab attention and can help to sell product. Sex sells and will always sell because we respond to material differently when we are in a state of arousal. Neuroscience indicates that this is because it engages the pleasurable reward centre of our brain. People also automatically assign positive traits to attractive looking people.

Try testing models of different age, gender or family groups on high converting pages to see if aligning the images more closely with your target audience improves conversion. People are naturally drawn to looking at eyes so this could also be incorporated in your tests.

10. Customers will procrastinate if you give them a chance!

Image of incentive to open a Very,co.uk account

People like to put decisions off until the last minute and avoid doing things that they don’t enjoy. To avoid visitors procrastinating use different strategies to motivate them to convert now!

Online only discount can be used to encourage visitors to sign up. Also have you considered using gamification techniques to make a recruitment email or registration process more interesting and enjoyable. You can also test different incentives (e.g. money off vouchers or prize draw entry) to see what attracts new customers the most.

11. If uncertainty exists people look to the actions of others to guide them!

Image of social proof on Dropbox.com

People naturally follow a crowd as it provides us with reassurance about our decisions, especially when we are in a new or uncertain situation. Sometimes we also consciously copy others we want to associate with or admire to project a certain image to the outside world.

If your site has built up a sizable number of subscribers ensure this is clearly sign posted on your landing pages. Inform visitors about what is most popular on your site and include testimonials from existing customers.

12 People respond more positively to someone they know and like!

Image of testimonial on Google Analytics homepage

People want to like organizations that they buy from and they respond positively to indications that you have similar values and attitudes to them. Companies that have a clear vision and strong customer centric culture can project this through their online presence to their advantage.

Market research can help you understand your prospects life style, values, interests and motivations. This can help you avoid having policies or promoting causes that conflict with your visitors’ vales and interests. Having photographs of real people who work for an organisation in relevant posts can improve how visitors relate to a website and have been known to significantly improve conversion rates. Further, the perceived age of a model on a page can also affect the conversion rate if they are too young or old compared to your visitor profile.

Sites that are perceived to use deception or trick customers into decisions may benefit from short-term gains in conversion but this is likely to be more than off-set by a loss from life-time customer value. Experiments have found that even a low level of irritation can make people irritated and act vengeful towards companies that annoy them.

13. People don’t like closing doors!

Image of a closed door — Source: Freeimages.com

People like to keep their options open as it gives them a sense of control over their own destiny. Even when people are at the last stage of a transaction having a get out option (e.g. back to shopping) may be more motivating than than if you make it difficult to abandon or change items in the basket. Otherwise customers can feel trapped and out of control.

Test different sign-posting at each stage of checkout as it is important to communicate to customers where they are in the process and give them clear options. Try testing more prominent ‘Return to shopping’ or ‘Back’ buttons in checkout to see if it actually improves rather than decreases conversion.

14. The power of the written word!

Image of a pen lying on paper which has writing on it — Source: Freeimages.com

People like to be perceived to be consistent and it is an important motivator of our behaviour. Inconsistency is perceived to be an undesirable personal trait. Commitment is the key to consistency and is the reason why Amway Corporation ask their members to record sales goals on paper. Similarly, just writing something positive about a subject can cause a shift in a person’s attitude and behaviour towards the views they express.

Reviews and testimonials are great for putting on your site but also they help reinforce attitudes and behaviour of those who write them. Have you analysed the value of customers after they have written a review? Test different ways of promoting testimonials and reviews and see if you can obtain permission to use them on landing pages.

15. Obedience to authority!

Image of meaning of Never Knowingly Undersold means from John Lewis — Never Knowingly Undersold – John Lewis

People often have a compulsion to comply with the commands of someone in authority. Even the appearance of authority can be enough to influence our behaviour. Some brands also are so well respected in their market that they have a certain authority that their competitors lack.

For many years in the US an actor who played a doctor in a popular TV series successfully promoted caffeine-free coffee. It’s success was partly explained by his association with being an MD on TV. Personalities associated with your category or service can be powerful symbols of authority.

Other sources of authority include independent surveys that benchmark your service. John Lewis (above) is well known for high service standards and its “Never knowingly Undersold” strap line. Awards, and testimonials from recognized experts can also add to your credibility. Try testing different ways of indicating your authority to see what works best on your site.

16. Don’t underestimate the importance of presentation!

Image of Haikudeck.com homepage

Expectations affect every aspect of our life and how you present your value proposition will influence how visitors respond to your site now and in the future.

Research can help you identify your potential customers’ expectations. If you understand new visitor expectations you can test aligning your key messages and presentation accordingly. For landing pages test different benefits for signing up and see if aligning content and imagery to reflect new visitor search activity improves conversion.

17. We put greater value on things that we have helped create!

Image of Customize option on Converse trainers website — Converse trainers allow you to customize your own trainers

The ability to customize a product by investing our own time and effort often leads us to value it more than something we buy off the shelf. Converse allows visitors to customize casual shoes and Moonpig.com enables customers to create their own greetings cards.

Where people value the ability to personalise a product this can be a great way of improving the perceived value of your product or service. Try testing in different categories or the level of personalisation to see what catches your customer’s imagination.

Thank you reading my post. If you found this useful please share with the social media icons on the page.