In an earlier post I talked about design and how it relates to conversion. These are two topics that aren’t usually discussed together by marketers or designers, yet they have a strong relationship with each other.
This post is to discuss testing design, and using your metrics to do so. However over at A List Apart they uncannily tackled the same issue and beat me to the punch. But I have a one-up on them, as I’ll be discussing a specific way in which you can test your design, and introducing a tool for you to do it.
Not just for prototypes anymore
User testing of prototypes has become common place. Whether it’s paper prototypes, or higher fidelity versions, interaction designers have been using this method to help them hone in on an effective design for some time. However little is mentioned about visual design and testing. We believe that the visuals of a screen are as much responsible for it’s usability and ease-of-use as the interaction model. So why don’t you hear more about testing and quantifying a visual design?
What can you look for?
There are many things you can look for in an entire site, however on a page by page basis you can boil it down to a few things. One is where people are clicking on the page. Are they going off somewhere in your main navigation away from converting? How long are spending on the page? If people are leaving and not continuing in the intended path, then something could be wrong.
For one of our recent clients, we found that on the check out cart screen a large percentage of people were not continuing to purchase, but rather going to the help section. This told us that they had reservations about the process (this particular product was not a typical product you order on the Internet). So to improve the page we added a brief, yet effective explanation of how the ordering process happens. The design of this new information is critical to it’s success, and testing this page will help discern if it is effective or not.
As Mani Sheriar asks in the article comments,
“My question is, as a small, one-person design-firm typically working with smaller clients, how would I go about setting up these types of tests? How much does this type of testing cost and how is it implemented?”
Well Mani, we have an answer for you. In the next week or so, we will be releasing a tool, for our clients, that help you do exactly that. This tool will allow you to inspect a single page on your site, and understand where people are clicking, and how effective the design is. It’s quick, easy, and free.
In short, we would like to encourage more of this behavior and this way of testing visual design. As we discussed in our previous post, design effects how user’s are able to use a page, and to a great degree. This in turn effects how successful the page is, and how well it converts for the site owner. I’ll let you know when the tool is available to the public, and we’re interested to see more discussion on this topic as a result.
Published on November 17, 2005
Resides in Design
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3 Responses to “Design To Convert II: Testing Design”
1
Mani Sheriar on December 8th, 2005
Awesome! Can’t wait to check it out … thanks. =)
2
Lo on September 3rd, 2006
Where’s it at?
Ahm ret to git mah quantification on, yo!
3
Ryan Nichols on September 5th, 2006
This brings back memories… The product we were referring to is called Crazy Egg. At this time it was a rough prototype and since has been developed into a full product.
visit Crazy Egg to see it in action.