Argument for Usability Testing (UX) in your organization: Pay now or pay later

What is UX testing/study anyway?

• Collection of qualitative data that can have quantitative outputs that lead profitable changes to Web sites.
• Building our Web sites to act, and react, like users expect them to based on experience from other sites that follow basic usability principles.

Why not analyze Web metrics or use your Quality Assurance (QA) group to determine usability?
Because neither one can! Web metrics are only good for quantitative data such as “How many visitors use I.E. 8.0?” or “What was the conversion rate for last month for my orange widgets?” QA teams test products/services/software for business requirements that are written by business analysts .  Just because something is possible to do doesn’t mean that it’s usable.

For example let’s say that a business requirement for your online store is that the software asks the customer for a shipping address if it is different than a billing address. The question and shipping form are below-the-fold (requiring the customer to scroll down to see it). Does the Web site technically work and ask for a shipping address? Yes, but what is the result? Most customers that have a different shipping address (than the billing address) will end up receiving their orders in the wrong place. Your QA team will pass this “requirement” as working but it could cost your company extra money in customer service phone calls resulting from unhappy buyers.

Usability = Profitability (the easier something is to use the more people buy/use it)

• Google search

• Apple iPhone (ironically Apple doesn’t user test outside of the company for new products but if you can afford to hire their designers, then you might not need to do UX testing either)

6 Types of usability analysis (source: http://www.uxbooth.com/resources/7-types-of-usability-testing-for-your-web-site/)

1. Quantitative Task Completion Analysis: can customers walk through your entire site without too many steps (4 is optimal) when shopping, finding a product, etc.?
2. Qualitative Task Completion Analysis: what is tripping them up and what can you improve?
3. Benchmark Competitive Comparisons: how well do customers perceive the use of your site and how do they perceive it compared to your competitors?
4. In-depth Competitive Comparisons: how does your site function and look in comparison to your competitors? Do the images load quickly, is your site attractive, can people find you, what makes them want to use your site instead of someone else’s? What can you improve?
5. Site Exit Analysis: at what page are people leaving your site (making it to your homepage and not diving in any deeper?) and why?
6. Page Usage Analysis: what pages are they viewing, how long are they staying, and where are they coming from?

UX goals:

• Increased revenue through clear calls-to-action
• Customer retention
• Less impact on customer service by disgruntled customers
• Combine UX with Web analytics/metrics to paint a holistic picture of our Web traffic
• Finish Web projects on time and on budget that will require less maintenance in the future from unhappy customers and lost revenues

Ron Scott
Manager of eBusiness Strategy
ronscottjr@gmail.com

Tags: call to action, money, profitability, qualitative data, quantitative data, revenue leak, usability testing, user testing, web analytics