User Research
Getting feedback from users
ON THIS PAGE
Usability Testing
User Surveys and Interviews
Web Analytics
Field Studies (ethnography)
User research involves direct and indirect methods of gathering feedback from your current website visitors and other people like your targeted customers. Input from actual people is the best way to find out about your users’ needs, goals, frustrations and preferences. Findings are often surprising and always interesting.
The first step in user research is to determine what it is you are trying to find out—what is the question? what is your primary concern? What do you already know about your targeted customers? What don’t you know?
Once the problem or question is identified, we define a strategy for the most efficient and economical way to get the desired information. We often combine methods into a hybrid approach for the best results.
Findings of user research are combined, analyzed and then translated into actionable recommendations for implementation and incorporation into your overall usability strategy.
Usability Testing
Direct feedback from people who use your website
Usability testing is superior to other research methods because it gathers data from people’s actual behavior with your website interface or website content, rather than from their opinions and stated preferences. Usability testing can be performed face-to- face or remote.
Direct observation
Direct observation is the most well-known form of usability testing. Direct observation usability tests are usually set up to discover the ease or difficulty for users in accomplishing their goals on your website, and to pinpoint elements that are causing frustration or even anger.
When developing a new website
Direct observation logistics and analysis range from informal (quick and low-cost) to an elaborate set up in a lab setting where users are recorded and a two-way mirror accommodates clients who want to observe the testing.
Cart sort studies
Card sorting is a user research method used to formulate and validate the organization of website content into logical groups (the categories and subcategories) on your website. Card sorting reveals how your users think about and mentally organize your proposed or existing website content and uncovers the vocabulary they use.
Card sorting is often used to resolve internal disagreements and uncertainty about navigation naming or organization of specific content when multiple options or interpretations exist. The findings play a big part in the creation of a user-focused information architecture and navigation scheme that resonates with your users.
Remote testing is the fastest and most economical approach to card sort studies. This is especially true for geographically dispersed user segments. With remote testing, you users can participate, at their convenience, while sitting at their own computers–anywhere around the country or around the world. This also opens up the possibility of a much larger participant base than is possible with face-to-face testing.
User Surveys and Interviews
Surveys and interviews are valuable research tools in gathering self-reported attitudes, opinions and needs from your actual website visitors or people who are representative of your target audience.
Surveys and interviews are good for finding out . . .
- Who your website visitors are
- What they are looking for
- Their expectations and goals
- What they need and want from your website
- Their frustrations
- How well satisfied they are with your site or product
- What they like about your site or product
- What they would like you to do differently or better
User interviews are often conducted over the phone, to reach geographically dispersed users in the most efficient and economical manner.
For clients who only serve users in a limited geography, face-to-face interviews are very effective and insightful if time and budget allows.
To reach the widest audience and actual users of your site, surveys are often accomplished through pop-up entrance or exit surveys on your website. They can also be conducted via Email, mail or by phone, and are often incorporated into other user data gathering methods.
If not prepared and implemented properly, surveys and interviews can alienate customers and produce misleading data. We’ll help you determine a strategy to make sure your survey and/or interviews . . .
- Are focused and relevant to what you need to learn
- Contain precise, objective questions that are not leading, loaded or subject to misinterpretation
- Will provide useful and actionable data
- Are structured properly for high response and low abandonment (pop up surveys)
- Will not annoy or alienate your customers
Web Analytics
Web analytics are a valuable source of information to find out where your site visitors are coming from, what they are looking for, where they go on your site, the most frequently visited pages, pages with high abandonment and bounce rates from the homepage and other key pages.
Although Web analytics cannot tell us why users do what they do, Web logs do indicate where problems may exist, possible missing content, unclear value proposition and purpose for the site and key pages on which to focus usability and persuasion efforts.
Field Studies (ethnography)
Field studies involve observation of users in their normal environment. Also referred to as contextual visits, field studies offer the richest understanding of what customers really need, through a better understanding of their goals, frequent tasks, environmental idosyncracies and inefficiencies they face with current interfaces.
Field studies involve going to users’ homes or places of work to observe them within the context of their normal environments. Although limited interview may be involved the emphasis is on quiet observation. In some instances a more in-depth interview can be conducted at the end of a visit, when it won’t influence the behavior of the person(s) being observed.
Watching people do what they do without interruption reveals inefficiencies and unmet needs that spark innovation, often resulting in a more efficient way of facilitating a task or in the addition of new content, features or functions.
Field studies are particularly valuable for improving employee productivity on intranets, which are notorious for being costly time sinks for businesses. Observing employees do what they need to do on their intranet reveals how they do their jobs, what they need from their intranet and short-coming and inefficiencies of the current interface. Modification to an intranet based upon the results of a field study can produce a huge gain in employee productivity for businesses.
When planning a new website or improving upon the performance of an extisting site, the more time and budget you can allocate to user research, the better armed you will be to satisfy site visitors and improve conversion rates on your website.
ALSO SEE