Here are 7 ways you can increase your web site sales with usability.

Ecommerce web sites can use these seven powerful usability tools to help understand what behavior is occurring on the site, and most importantly WHY that behavior is occurring.

This is extremely helpful because managers can use this information to optimize the usability of the site – thus increasing conversion and ultimately sales.

Just like Batman and his utility belt full of tools, usability experts have available a variety of tools designed to fight the crimes of task-flow error and poor performance.  These usability tools, used either separately or in conjunction with one another, can help determine where in an eCommerce web site there are usability issues that are causing lost conversion and sales.  Implementing optimizations based on the analysis of the “why” of these task-flow errors can help increase web site conversion and sales.

So here then is a list of 7 ways eCommerce web sites can increase web sales with usability:

1. Conduct in-person moderated usability testing of your web site

This is the traditional, and arguably the best method to learn about where there are usability issues that are impacting web site performance, thus sales.  I refer to it as “best” because it uses real users and directly answers the question of “why” your web site visitors are doing the crazy behaviors they do (like leaving order-flow pages early, or clicking the browser back and forward buttons continually part way through your eCommerce sales pages).

The “moderated” part of in-person moderated usability testing means the test participant and the moderator (and potentially observers) are present in the same room for the test sessions, and the moderator delivers the test and probes interesting behaviors with follow-up questions.

In-person moderated usability testing provides full interaction with and observation of the testing participants as they conduct the test.  This enables the moderator to follow-up or probe issues as they occur, and learn from the participant the “why” of behavior and task-flow issues.  In terms of actual usability data this method provides the most detail and best analysis of your web site, which eventually leads to optimization and increased sales.

Pros:  Arguably the best way to gather usability data about your web site.  Provides detailed observations and feedback via the in-person 1-on-1 interaction between the moderator and the participant.

Cons: Takes more time to set-up and administer than other methods.  Costs more than many other methods and can be difficult or almost impossible logistically due to geography / distance.

2. Conduct a remote moderated usability test of your web site

Almost equal to the power of in-person moderated testing is remote moderated usability testing.  With remote testing, the participant and the moderator interact together while conducting the test, but are not in the same room, maybe not even in the same country!

By using technology such as screen-sharing software, phones, web cams, and audio-video recording, a live moderated test can be conducted from anywhere, with almost anyone.  The moderator could for example be in let’s say, Los Angeles, California, and the participant could be sitting at her computer in say London, England.

As with in-person moderated testing, remote moderated usability testing enables the moderator to observe and ask critical follow-up or probing questions with the participant.  This provides rich and detailed “why” behavioral data that can be used to make recommendations for optimizing the site, thus leading eventually to increased sales.

If a web cam and microphone are available on the participant’s end, this enables the visual and audio interaction that is obtained via in-person testing.  The only issue is that the same technology relied upon to deliver the computer-to computer or phone connection can sometimes fail (or technical term “hic-up”), causing issues or problems with the remote test.

Pros: Almost as good as in-person usability testing.  In some ways better than in-person testing because remote moderated usability testing enables testing of participants regardless of geography, and thus can be far faster and cheaper than in-person moderated testing.

Cons: The technology used for the connections (telephone and or sharing of computers) can sometimes fail, causing issues with the test itself.  In-person remote usability testing without the added visual component of a web cam means helpful non-verbal information is not obtained.

3. Conduct a remote un-moderated usability test of your web site

Often referred to as automated research (and by Scrabble champions as asynchronous research) remote un-moderated usability testing uses online tools to deliver usability tests to users without a human moderator being present.   The user is typically intercepted via a pop-up or related type of request to participate in the study, and upon acceptance the participant is walked through the study via written instructions – while behavior is captured via click-analysis and participant feedback gathered via survey-type questions at the end of the study.

Because actual users are part of the study, this is a very helpful source of data – especially when larger numbers of participants are used.  Data gathered from the analysis of the testing can lead to usability optimizations that increase conversion and thus web site sales.

Unlike moderated usability testing however, there is no ability to modify the test in real-time based on participant behavior or feedback.  Thus the “why” of behavior may not be readily available.  To help understand the “why,” automated usability testing has to carefully include sufficient questions to dig into participant attitudes and opinions about their behavior without leading the witness (so to speak).

The validity of results for remote un-moderated usability testing completely relies upon the skills and expertise of the person developing the test.  This is NOT the place for amateurs or do-it-yourselfers who have no usability training.  A poorly set up test with leading questions could actually harm web site sales, because the tainted results of a bad automated study if applied on a web site could negatively impact conversion and thus sales.

Pros: A very quick and relatively inexpensive way to gather large amounts of actual user behavioral data.  Testing can be run on almost any web site (including your competitors!) and analysis can lead to optimizations that improve eCommerce conversion and thus sales.

Cons: Developing automated tests that evaluate the right information but without providing give-away answers or leading questions is very difficult without the expertise of a trained professional.  The inability to probe participants and dig into the why of their behaviors while they are conducting the test means important feedback may not be available.

4. Conduct  an expert usability review of your web site

An expert usability review is an audit of your web site by a trained usability professional.  The usability review is an examination of the site against common usability best practices and heuristics, which are the 10 general principles for user interface design.

The usability review should  include detailed analysis including screen captures of the web pages with specific call-outs for where the issues are, what they are, and potential ways the issues can be optimized.  This is a very fast and efficient way to gather usability feedback about an eCommerce site.  The information provided can be used to optimize the site and thus improve conversion and sales.

The issue with expert usability reviews is they don’t use actual web site visitors for testing at all – instead the expert evaluates the site in much the same way a Doctor evaluates your health during a check-up.  If only one expert conducts the review, it’s unlikely that the expert usability review will find all the usability problems.  The important “why” of user behavior is not available, although the trained expert may give opinions about potential reasons for the “whys.”

Pros: Very quick and efficient way to learn about potential usability issues and opportunities for improvement.  Lower in cost than many other usability testing types.

Cons: If only conducted by one person, usability issues may be missed.  Worse, because actual users are not tested and observed, the “whys” of user task flow errors are not captured.

5. Conduct a click-stream analysis of your web site

Another handy usability tool is click-stream analysis, which can be used to map typical (or more interestingly atypical) paths through your eCommerce web site.  Evaluations of where users click on a page (or where they don’t!) can lead to testing of new placements, graphic treatments or related optimization of buttons, calls-to-action and related interaction elements.

Most click-stream analysis tools provide a snippet of code you place on your web pages, which enables the tracking of actual users clicks.  Because your real users are providing this real data, it can be very helpful when evaluating usability optimizations to improve conversion and thus sales.  Several tools also capture form entry data, which can be very useful when trying to evaluate why certain form fields have high error or abandonment rates.

However, because there is no “why” information of user behavior, click-stream analysis misses important user behavioral information and feedback.  This means that to a certain extent some guess-work is required to evaluate results and make recommendations, a dangerous proposition if the guesses are wrong and conversion and sales decrease instead of increase.  I typically recommend to my clients who are interested in using click-stream analysis to do so in conjunction with A/B or multivariate testing of resulting recommended optimizations.  It’s a safe way to hedge your bets and ensure you don’t hurt instead of improve sales.

Pros: A very handy way to evaluate actual user click actions on a page, or better yet across several pages.  Very cost-effective, and assuming you have the ability to add code to your pages can be set up and run quickly.

Cons: Doesn’t provide the “why” of user behavior.  Interpretation of results and recommendations for optimizations is completely reliant on the skills of the evaluator.  Can be privacy and or security issues if captured data includes form entries as well as clicks.

6. Conduct an eye-tracking study of your web site

Ahh eye tracking, the one subject that seems more than most to cause usability professionals to take sides and in some locations (picture a bar with a few drinks under their belts) might even cause a fight.  Some usability professionals swear by eye tracking, and some usability professionals swear AT eye tracking.

Eye tracking is a means of providing a participant with an apparatus that tracks their eye movements as they look at a web page or pages.  Typically the path of the users eyes as they move around the page is recorded (this is called “saccades“) as well as the amount of time users focus on particular places on the page (this is called “fixations“).  Aggregating multiple sessions of eye tracking can provide common visual paths users take as they view a page or pages.

Proponents of eye tracking  use the information to determine what objects seem to be capturing a users attention, and what elements are ignored or missed.  This can be helpful when analyzing and optimizing placement or graphical features of important objects on pages, which can potentially help improve usability and thus web site sales.

Opponents of eye tracking claim the data is highly artificial and potentially not valid because users are not in their normal environment and are required to use technological implements that they normally would not use.  In addition, opponents feel the data can be misinterpreted, causing potentially bad recommendations that could hurt web site conversion and thus sales.

Pros: Enables eCommerce web site managers to gather actual user visual data as participants scan web pages and objects on the page.  Analysis of what is capturing attention, as well as what is not capturing attention can be used to optimize placement or graphical features of objects on the page – potentially resulting in increased conversion and sales.

Cons: Can be expensive and time-consuming to set-up and run.  Opponents maintain that because of the technology required to capture the data, the user is not in their normal context and thus results may not be accurate.  Further, analysis of results and subsequent recommendations for changes are completely reliant on the skills of the evaluator.   They “why” of typical web site user behavior may also not be known as eye movement is only one part of the interaction a user has with a web site.

7. Conduct a simulated eye-tracking study of your web site

Because in-person eye tracking can be expensive (depending on the technology, number of participants and facility) simulated eye-tracking algorithms were created as a low-cost alternative.  These simulated tools in theory replicate a human eye-track based on object location, white space, contrast, size, etc. of objects on a page.   This information can be used to infer where potential issues with typical visual paths are, and to make changes that seek to optimize tracking resulting in increased conversion and sales.

Because they are so cheap and relatively easy to perform, simulated eye-tracking can provide data almost immediately.  Test pages with changes in object location or graphical treatment can be run through the same test to determine if the changes improved the visual path.

As with in-person eye-tracking studies, opponents claim this is all a load of dingo’s kidneys (hat tip to Douglas Adams) and that not only is the “why” of user behavior data missing, so is the user.

Pros: Provides a low cost and fast alternative to human eye-tracking studies.  Data can be used to evaluate potential usability issues with object placement or graphical treatment.  New versions of placement or graphics can be tested quickly and compared against the original set to evaluate the potential usability improvement.

Cons: Does not use real users, instead uses algorithms to simulate typical human eye-tracking responses to objects on a page.  Does not capture the “why” of behavior.  Dependent on the skills of the evaluator in analyzing results and making optimization recommendations.

Conclusion: 7 ways to increase your web site sales with usability

As with Batman’s tool belt, it usually takes one or more tools used for specific means to provide the best usability testing results.  This is certainly true when dealing with the 7 usability testing tools mentioned above.  By using the correct tool or tools an eCommerce site can be evaluated and usability improvements can be made, which improves the conversion and thus sales of the site.

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Conducting a Usability Review:

In the world of usability, nothing seems to confuse my clients more than trying to determine exactly what a usability review is.  And it’s difficult to purchase something if you don’t know what it is!

Usability reviews don't hurt (physically)

You can think about a usability review this way, it’s kind of the same as going to a doctor for a check-up, your web site will be examined to find usability issues (ailments) and you’ll be provided with recommended optimizations (prescriptions) for improvements.

Usability reviews are not generally well known or understood because the usability field itself does not have a single, consistent, standardized definition of “usability review.”

It’s an interesting and ironic truth that usability professionals who pride themselves on utilizing standards for testing and optimizing web sites can’t create their own set of standard definitions of common usability terms.  Go figure.

So, what is a usability review and how do you do one?

Since there is no consistent standardized definition of a usability review (also known as an expert review, expert usability review, usability audit, heuristic evaluation, etc. etc. etc.) I’ll go ahead and give you mine:

Craig’s definition of a usability review:

“A usability review is an evaluation of a user interface versus common usability best practices and heuristics by a trained usability professional.”

So in the spirit of sharing and giving, here are the steps I use when conducting a review.  By following these steps, you will have all the information necessary to conduct your own usability review.

And if you would like me to email you a sample usability review so you can see how this all comes together, just contact me and I’ll be glad to send you one.

Step 1 – Become a trained usability professional, or save time and hire one.

As with most any other professional such as a doctor, lawyer or elephant-trainer, it’s important to have an education and experience in the practice.  Usability testing of critical tasks and usability reviews are not about providing opinions about a design, conducting focus groups or deploying a satisfaction survey on a web site.

Rather, usability testing and reviews are a scientific approach to analyzing a user interface and task-flow to determine where (and why) there are problems that cause users to have difficulty completing their tasks.

Using a trained usability professional for your usability review means taking the guess-work out of conducting the evaluation, and ensuring that a non-biased approach is used.

Step 2 – Identify critical goals for the web site or application:

More than likely, there are multiple goals for your web site or application.  The important aspect of a usability review is to focus on the most critical goals.  This is because narrowing down the focus enables evaluation of specific tasks associated with that critical goal or goals, and helps shape the subsequent  to-do list of potential optimizations derived from the review.

For an eCommerce site like Blue Nile it’s probably selling diamond engagement rings.

For an informational site like the State library of Kansas it’s probably helping you find the literature you are looking for.

Whatever your web site or application has for critical goals, those are the ones that you should focus on first when conducting a usability review.

Step 3 – Define typical users via a Persona:

The vast majority of web sites and applications have typical users who share a common set of domain expertise (knowledge of the field) and critical tasks.  Identifying the Persona (a fictional representation of the typical user) is critical.  This is because the usability review must take into consideration the type of person who is interacting most frequently with the user interface.  It must consider their familiarity or lack thereof with the terminology, information architecture, navigation schema and related user interface systems they interact with.

For example, the Persona used for a usability review of a web site that deals with precision electronic measurement probes for the engineering industry, such as on MicronTesa.com may be quite different from that of a Persona who visits VirginAtlantic looking to book a flight to Heathrow.

Basic usability standards apply across all users, but specific “mental maps” (expectations of labeling and information architecture – groupings of information) must be considered when conducting a usability review.

Step 4 – Conduct the critical tasks:

With the above steps completed, now the actual “review” of the web site or application can take place.  The identified critical tasks are conducted one at a time, yes even down to purchasing that airline ticket – make sure you purchase a fully-refundable ticket of course!

As each task is conducted, the usability review identifies specific task issues as well as general usability issues as defined by usability heuristics (best practices).

What are the usability heuristics?

According to Jakob Nielsen the 10 usability heuristics are:

1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation

Typically each critical task has to be conducted many times, and each time a separate usability heuristic is evaluated against the task.  Issues are noted, typically with screen shots captured and detailed information about the usability issue found.

Step 5 – Compile the analysis

By now, you have a great amount of information about specific usability issues in the task flows.  Although you *could* list each one out separately, a better way to compile the analysis is with a set of grouped issues.  In addition, I like to provide screen shots documenting the issues, with commentary provided.

It’s important to also include suggestions or recommendations to improve the usability issues found.  After all, nobody wants to receive a laundry-list of problems with no hope of improvement.

As mentioned, there should be several issues that all share common traits, these can be grouped together.  I like to group issues into buckets of commonality – such as those involving:

• Information architecture
• Navigation
• Labeling (taxonomy)
• Layout
• Functional flow
• Form function
• Error handling and messaging

Step 6 – Present the analysis

More than likely the client will be faced with a litany of problems, issues and snafus.  When presenting the results of the usability review, I always like to start with some positives.  I typically will provide (as best I can) screen shots and commentary of the good points of the web site or application.  This has two purposes:

1. If provides the recipient of the bad news with a glimmer of hope
2. It reminds everyone that the web site or application has benefits – benefits that can and should be mentioned

There’s one other important point to consider about a usability review, and that is there’s no such thing as the perfect usability review.  I always like to remind my recipients that a usability review, because it’s conducted by one person, will not catch all the usability issues that might be present.

But by focusing on the critical tasks of the web site or application, hopefully the most significant usability issues are identified, and recommendations for improvements made available.

Conclusion – How to conduct a usability review

So there you have it, those are the steps I use in developing a usability review.  Whether you call it a heuristic review, a usability audit or an expert review, the point is it’s a great way to learn about issues and opportunities to improve a web site or application.

By the way, if you would like to see a sample usability review I’ll be glad to email you one, just contact me.

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You should usability test, even with just 1 person

Wanna know what I think?  I think usability testing is so important, so amazingly powerful, and so useful for companies that want need to increase web site ROI that they should must usability test – even with just 1 person.

Only 1 person?  Not 7 people?  I know – I know, you’re reaching for the phone to call the insane asylum and have me committed.  But before you do, just hear me out – you may decide I’m crazy like a Fox (or a really, really smart Badger).

Crazy like a Fox

ANY usability testing is better than NO usability testing

You may not believe me, but this is a universal truth: ANY usability testing is better than no usability testing.  Don’t believe me?  OK, maybe you’ll believe a couple of usability gurus.

Here’s what Steve Krug has to say about usability testing with just one person:

“If you really want to know if your Web site works, ask your next door neighbor to try using it, while you watch.

(You bring the beer.)”

Here’s what another usability guru, Jakob Nielsen has to say about usability testing with just one person:

“As soon as you collect data from a single test user, your insights shoot up and you have already learned almost a third of all there is to know about the usability of the design. The difference between zero and even a little bit of data is astounding.”

Now of course I’m not advocating ONLY using one person at all times.  But in critical situations where resources and/or money and/or time are tight, usability testing with just one person is an acceptable alternative to full usability testing with 7 or so people.

Usability testing case study: Heardable.com

I’m doing more and more usability testing with just one person, and you know what, it works really well!

Case in point: I recently used a usability test with just one person for one of my clients: Heardable.com.

Heardable.com is a web service that enables Brands to measure and monitor critical social attributes.  I like Heardable because it also provides actionable information about how to improve the attributes.  I’m a big fan of actionable and useful data, so I’m a big fan of Heardable.

Because Heardable.com is a start-up, just like any other start-up the founders had many issues to resolve, everything from how to explain what Heardable.com is on the home page, to how to access detailed metrics and data.

Because Heardable is in public Beta, the founders asked me to help identify some potential opportunities for usability improvements.  But with their resources being tight, and knowing many more changes were coming, they asked me for a low cost – very fast way to do a quick usability test.

How did I do it?  Easy…

A VERY quick usability test with one person

In the quick time of only three days, I:

• Created a Persona (it was easy, they already had very specific data on their target users)
• Identified five critical tasks that needed testing
• Created a usability test protocol
• Recruited a test participant
• Conducted the test using Morae
• Analyzed the results
• Edited the snippet videos showing usability improvement opportunities
• Created the PowerPoint analysis document
• Sent the analysis to the clients
• Submitted my invoice for payment
• Almost broke my arm patting myself on the back for a job well done
• Visited my chiropractor for adjustment on that arm

The results of the usability test and analysis were excellent.  The usability test found 11 potential opportunities for usability optimizations, and more than double that for recommendations the Heardable team could use to implement those potential optimizations.

Could additional test participants have found more issues?  You bet.  But the point is with the limited time / resources / money available, this test provided them with critical usability information that is actionable – and can make a big difference for long term improvement.

Conclusion: usability testing with 1 person works well:

So what am I saying here?

I’m saying ANY usability testing is way, way better than no usability testing.

I’m saying the ability to conduct usability testing in a matter of days (not weeks) is powerful.

I’m saying the ability to conduct usability testing for low cost (not the cost of a mid-size car) is a significant reality.

And I’m saying the ability to conduct usability testing that provides actionable and useful information that can be used NOW is brilliant, because it enables a company to improve the usability, thus ROI of their web site or application in near real-time.

What’s to not love?

The very smart founders of Heardable know that usability testing, ANY usability testing, even testing with just one person, is way better than no usability testing.

Now you do too.  So what are you gonna do about it?

Feel free to contact me if you want more information about how a usability test with just one person can help improve your web site’s ROI.

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Perceived Affordance, Usability and Online Sales:

One of the most important goals of web site usability testing is finding and fixing perceived affordance issues.  You can increase your usability, conversion and thus your web site Return on Investment (ROI) by improving perceived affordance.

What’s perceived affordance?  For web site owners, it’s the art and science of designing objects like ‘buy now’ buttons in such a way that your web site visitors know just by looking at it that they can click on it.

One of the most important functions of web site usability testing is to evaluate the perceived affordance of links and buttons.  By testing and optimizing perceived affordance of critical objects, such as “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” buttons, web sites can dramatically increase conversion, and thus ROI.

Definition of Perceived Affordance:

According to Don Norman, the Godfather of design and usability and the author of the book “The Design of Everyday Things,” the concept of perceived affordance is defined this way;

“The word “affordance” was originally invented by the perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson (1977, 1979) to refer to the actionable properties between the world and an actor (a person or animal).

What the designer cares about is whether the user perceives that some action is possible (or in the case of perceived non-affordances, not possible).

In product design, where one deals with real, physical objects, there can be both real and perceived affordances, and the two need not be the same. In graphical, screen-based interfaces, all that the designer has available is control over perceived affordances. The computer system, with its keyboard, display screen, pointing device (e.g., mouse) and selection buttons (e.g., mouse buttons) affords pointing, touching, looking, and clicking on every pixel of the display screen.”

According to William Gaver, there are three categories of affordance:

• Perceptible
• False
• Hidden

By evaluating the design elements that communicate perceived affordance for various objects in your web site, you can determine which category an object fits, and if wrong, take steps to correct it.

Perceived Affordance is Critical for Your Web Site Success:

When you think about your web site, your ROI in fact lives or dies on your ability to successfully manipulate design to improve perceived affordance.  Your web site is primarily a one-way pipe of information, the majority being visual information (with the potential for some audio).  You provide the visual information, and your web site visitors consume and comprehend it (or at least try to).

Because the primary interaction that takes place on your site is one-way visual, you must be zealous in your attempts to understand and evaluate how well you are communicating perceived affordance.  Testing and optimization of elements that impact perceived affordance should be your number one goal, because it directly impacts your conversion rates, and thus your web site’s ROI.

Actions your web site visitors take such as mouse clicks or typing characters, although very important, are never going to happen unless you provide clear, consistent and effective visual clues about how to take actions.  You do this by continually testing and optimizing the crucial elements of your site that establish and communicate perceived affordance.

Examples of Perceived Affordance in Buttons:

Let’s examine a few examples of perceptible perceived affordance in action.  In order to visually communicate that a button is clickable and will enable the site visitor to take action, it is necessary to use design to visually separate, distinguish and illuminate a function.

As demonstrated above, Amazon.com uses many design elements to generate high perceived affordance of their “Add to Shopping Cart” button, including use of:

• Strongly contrasting yellow button color
• Only use of that yellow color on the page
• Heavy outline border around button
• Round strongly contrasting icon of shopping basket
• Text in button “Add to Shopping Cart”
• Larger font for button text
• Elongated shape, round on left side, squared on right side
• Gradient fill in top of button to visually mimic 3-D shape
• Dark blue background color for surrounding box

Another example is eBay, which creates a high perceived affordance of the “Buy It Now” button.

For eBay, the “Buy It Now” button uses multiple design elements to effectively communicate perceived affordance:

• Strongly contrasting blue button color
• Only use of that blue button color on the page
• Largest sized button on page
• Text in button “Buy It Now”
• Larger font for button text
• Strong contrasting colors, white text on blue background
• Dark gray background color for surrounding box

To provide contrast, let’s examine use of design elements that appear to provide a function, but in fact do not.  This is known as false affordance, and can work against web site visitors.

False Affordance:

A false affordance is an apparent affordance that has no real function.  False affordance is a major contributor to lower web site conversion and lost online sales.  This is because a false affordance breaks the faith a web site visitor has in the web site’s functional abilities, and causes doubt and confusion.

Example of a False Affordance:

In this example, the prominently displayed “Featured Gift” and photo of the toy seem to indicate that more information about the toy might be available by clicking, but where?  Web site visitors who come across the display are left wondering, because no clear action button seems available for this toy.

A common tool many web site designers use is to make the image of the product clickable.  But that is not the case here.

In fact, there is no action available, the image of the toy is not clickable, nor is the heading “Featured Gift.”  There is no way to navigate to the featured toy using the visual designs offered, thus the connection with a “false affordance.”

There are many types of designs that can lead to false affordance, some of the more common being:

• Objects that look like buttons, but are not
• Photos of objects that are not links, especially if place with photos that are links
• Placing a blue outline around an image or link, yet no link is present
• Underlined text that is not a link
• Use of blue in text that is not a link
• Form data entry fields that are not active

For web site owners, false affordances are extremely damaging, and cause many more problems than simply lost clicks to a particular item.

By prominently displaying a false affordance on the home page, a web site causes damages including:

• Lost faith (visitors wonder – “is this clickable, what about this, or this?”)
• Lost focus (visitors spend more time trying to solve a navigation problem than shopping)
• Lost sales (frustrated visitors will often not complete their task)
• Lost trust (many visitors will simply leave the site – never to return)

Finding and fixing false affordances should be a high-priority job of every web site owner, especially those who own eCommerce sites – as false affordances  cost lost visitors, conversion and sales.

Poor Design and Hidden Perceived Affordance:

As with false affordance, poorly designed techniqes can hurt perceived affordance and can cause major performance issues for web site owners as well.  This is referred to as Hidden Affordance.  In the case of poor design, visual clues that a link or function is present are not displayed as visually separate, distinguished and illuminated.

Example of poor perceived affordance:

The example above demonstrates a site that provides web site visitors with a display of products available for purchase.  However, the function associated with “Checkout Now” – in this case a link to an online order form – is poorly displayed because it has minimal visual clues as to it’s function, and thus has low perceived affordance.

Among the perceived affordance problems with the “Checkout Now” button are:

• No button shape around the text
• Yellow text color is not a strong contrast against the white page
• No underline when mouse rolls over text
• Text in button visually close to “Back to results text”
• Missing a background color to call attention to location
• Upper left location not typically associated with ‘continue’ action

Improve Perceived Affordance with Testing:

So how do you improve your web site objects perceived affordance – with testing and re-testing.  There are four primary types of testing that can be used to analyze and optimize perceived affordance.  They are:

1. Expert Usability Review – Also called a “heuristic review.” This review uses expert analysis of interaction devices such as buttons, links and related functions against industry standards and best practices.  The best form of an expert usability review is to receive several, since each expert might focus on unique aspects that grouped together form a better picture of what needs to be improved and why.
2. Usability Testing – Using 1-on-1 moderated testing, a web site owner can quickly find problems with task flows for critical tasks.  These often involve issues with perceived affordance.  Because usability testing only needs about 7 or so participants, and because it uses real web site visitors, and can be done very quickly and for low cost, usability testing is a great way to find issues with perceived affordance.  It is the only method a web site owner can use to determine the “why” of an actual web site visitor’s behavior.
3. A/B Testing – Two different versions of a button, link or related object can be tested on your web site at the same time using a traffic split.  50% of the traffic goes to the version that has the “A” version (the original version of the object usually) and 50% to the new test “B” version.  After enough statistically significant results are captured, a winner can be picked based on interaction rate.  A/B testing is pretty reliable, assuming enough traffic is present.  However, it won’t tell you the “why” of the visitor behavior, and of course it might negatively impact your conversion if the “B” test version is worse than the original version.
4. Multivariate Testing – For sites with large amounts of traffic, multiple versions of objects can all be tested at the same time.  This allows for rapid analysis and iteration of the best possible combination of elements.  The downside to multivariate testing is it needs lots and lots of traffic to establish statistically significant results.  In addition, as with A/B testing the “why” of visitor behavior won’t be know, only which combination of elements performs the best.

Conclusion, Increase Your Usability and Website ROI with Perceived Affordance

Perceived affordance is critical to your web site success, and to your conversion and ROI.  Perceived affordance determines how well your interaction object designs communicate their function and use to your web site visitors.  Poor perceived affordance hurts your web site interaction, conversion and sales and results in lower ROI.  You can increase your ROI by conducting testing and optimization with the interaction objects on your web site.  An excellent way to identify potential issues and optimizations of perceived affordance is with usability testing.  Continual testing and re-testing ensures you are maximizing your potential usability, perceived affordance and thus ROI of your web site.

For more information about maximizing your web site’s perceived affordance and ROI contact me.

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Usability Testing and Online Marketing Campaigns

Usability testing in action

Usability testing is a tool typically thought of for use with improving web sites or web-based applications, but if you are responsible for online marketing here’s important news – usability testing can provide you with a killer online marketing campaign.

What you and your competing marketing managers may not realize is usability testing an online marketing campaign is an easy, fast and cheap way to increase conversion – and increase the ROI of your marketing spend.  Why?  Because usability testing is all about improving tasks, tasks like;

• Understanding the message of an online advertisement
• Easily clicking through to a landing page
• Quickly completing a landing page form
• Efficiently entering data in a buy-flow to purchase a product

Usability and online marketing optimization

So why should you add usability testing as one of your online marketing optimization tools?  According to Forrester’s US Interactive Marketing Forecast, interactive marketing will near $55 Billion, represent 21% of all marketing spend, and interactive marketing media will cannibalize traditional media to do it.

The money you invest in online marketing must not only equal traditional marketing results, it has to beat it – because your competitors are busy doing the exact same thing.

Reasons to add usability testing

There are several reasons why adding usability testing to your online marketing optimization mix is highly productive:

First:  Usability testing is fast and easy

Usability testing doesn’t need thousands of statistically significant responses or multiple focus groups.  To usability test a task like going through an online marketing flow, you don’t need a lot of time, effort or input.  It’s fast and easy to quickly create a test and learn from it.  This can come in handy when you are trying to make decisions about important elements in your future online marketing campaign – well before launch.

For example, while your online marketing campaign is still in development you could quickly use usability testing to determine how easy or difficult it is for your prospects to click through to a landing page, understand the message on the page, complete a form, and/or successfully navigate the order or sales path.  By watching just 7 usability participants try to complete your online marketing path, you’ll know instantly where there are problems in your task flow – and will probably have a pretty good idea of what to do to improve it.

Second:  Usability testing is cheap and very low risk

Setting up a usability test, asking 7 participants to go through the test, observing their behavior and debriefing them at the end can all be done in less than a week for minimal cost – especially if you use remote moderated testing.

If you compare asking 7 participants to try to complete an online marketing flow, versus conducting an A/B test where perhaps hundreds or thousands of real potential customers are going through the flow, usability is far cheaper because you’re not losing orders or sales due to a potentially bad “B” version.  And usability testing is cheaper because you don’t have to test live production versions of a campaign, you can test pre-launch versions and not risk the potential costs involved in creating a bad live campaign.

Third:  Usability testing uses your real target prospects

Testing with the actual people you are targeting means you get feedback directly from the people you want to engage.  Want to know what your actual prospects think as they interact with your online marketing campaign?  You can with usability testing.  By finding test participants who exactly match your typical online marketing prospect, you’ll be testing your campaign with the actual people who could be interacting with it.

By evaluating how easy or difficult it is for your online marketing prospects to interact with your online marketing flow, you’ll have credible feedback to help you improve the experience.   This takes the guesswork out of trying to determine the “why” of user actions, something click-stream, A/B or log file analysis simply cannot provide.

What to usability test?

Usability test a landing page to optimize conversion

So what elements in your online marketing campaign should you usability test?  The possibilities are endless, but there are probably 3 or 4 critical elements of any campaign that would be simple, cheap and effective to test.  And the information you receive from the test can improve your online marketing campaign right away.  They are:

1. Call to Action Function – Conducting a usability test of an online advertisement with a call to action button is a quick way to determine if your call to action graphic is doing what it’s supposed to.  Does the test participant see the graphic in context with other ads or content?  Does the button look like a button and stimulate response?  What does the participant expect to see after they click the button?  Usability testing will provide all those answers, and more.
2. Landing Page Content and Information Architecture – Once your prospect is on your landing page, does the content meet their expectations?  What about the information provided, is it clear and easily understood?  Does the participant know where to go, and what to do next?
3. Order or Buy Flow Form Function – Assuming you have a form on your landing page, is it easy to use?  Does the participant make any mistakes, or have confusion when entering data?  How long does it take to enter the data?  Are there too many fields, or not enough, from the participants viewpoint?
4. Next Steps – After completing the form, does the participant know what will happen next?  What are the participant’s expectations?  Does the participant receive their expected feedback?  Are they satisfied with the experience?

Conclusion – Add usability testing to your online marketing and make it Killer!

Adding usability testing to your online marketing efforts can help you take your ho-hum online marketing campaign to killer marketing campaign status.  Usability testing does this because it’s all about tasks, not opinions, it is cheap and very low risk and it uses your real target prospects to identify where there are problems in your flow.

With the increasing use of online marketing in the overall media mix it becomes even more important to make sure your online marketing efforts are optimized for success, and usability testing is a tool you can use to accomplish that.

For more information on how to add usability testing to your online marketing mix just contact me, I’ll be glad to help you increase your conversion.

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