Posted on Tue, Jun 23, 2009
So, you’ve got a shiny new website and everyone in the company is exclaiming how “cool” it looks and how it will help you win business. Countless hours were spent deciding if the toolbar should be on the top or left side of each page, what color the text should be and how many, if any, pictures of the office should be posted. All that is over and now everyone in the company loves the new look.
But what kind of efforts went into making sure your new website worked for the user?
Many companies spend big money and time on website design that makes management happy, but overlook the most important piece of the pie – the user experience. Evolve uses proven methods to test the usability of your website and makes sure it supports the brand you’ve worked so hard to build.
When conducting a usability study, Evolve works with you to understand all the possible scenarios your end user could experience. We typically use two methods for usability studies – Usability Audits and Usability Labs.
Usability Audits involve dissecting your site as if we were the users. We use an extensive checklist and heuristics to evaluate every aspect of your site and its usability. Our report includes all the areas that could cause your users problems, prioritized by level of severity, and our recommendations on how to improve your site.
During Usability Labs – not to be confused with focus groups – we interact with actual users and potential users one-on-one.
- Participants are asked to complete several real-life tasks, such as finding information about a specific product or service, determining why your company is better than your competition and locating the best way to ask you questions about your products and services.
- The usability lab moderator observes each task and interviews the user about his or her overall impression of the site and any suggestions to make the experience more usable.
- Evolve uses some pretty cool technology to record each computer session and the user’s face as he or she completes each task. (You have to admit, being able to review individual mouse movements, clicks and facial expressions is pretty awesome and goes a long way in analyzing a website’s usability.) A live feed of this can be sent to a client in a separate room!
We’ve come across some firms who recommend traditional focus groups to assess website usability. While focus groups have a place in research, we warn against relying on them for usability studies because it’s difficult to measure individual user behavior this way. Users cannot be observed in-depth as the tasks are being carried thus diluting the findings.
David Hamill, an independent usability specialist in the UK, makes a great argument for not using focus groups for usability studies. Read more about his views here.
As a side note, we firmly believe that the client should be as involved as possible with website usability. A great example of how Evolve recently worked with developers and designers can be found on our usability blog.
Good sitting-in-the-airport-with-nothing-to-read reads:
The Use and Misuse of Focus Groups; Jakob Nielsen
Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics; Tullis & Albert
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability; Steve Krug
Posted on Fri, Jun 12, 2009
Julie, Pres, and Stew, winner
Congratulations to our very own Stewart Law for winning AMAOKC’s Volunteer of the Year award at yesterday’s Excellence In Marketing Awards.
Evolve is dedicated to the local marketing community and in the last year Stew has enthusiastically shown this by selflessly serving it.
Every month, Stew is a familiar face to all AMAOKC attendees. He greets everyone with a smile (and a name tag) and a happy “hello” – the perfect ambassador for a professional marketing association.
From all of us at Evolve and AMAOKC – well done! AMAOKC would not be what it is today without your involvement.
Posted on Tue, Jun 09, 2009
Image totally stolen from The Lost Ogle
Stew came across a great post published on The Lost Ogle today. Check out the picture above – there is something most certainly amiss with the chart and the data.
Although 48% of Oklahoman’s approve of Obama according to News Channel 9, the pie chart represents this as 75%. So, at a glance you might be inclined to think that the vast majority, 3/4ths, of folk in OK are in approval. Of course, using a quick visual cue (the purpose of charts, after all) like this could cause you to make a dramatically incorrect assumption.
Had this been some research that you or your company had paid for, a decision could have been made which was not only incorrect but costly.
That’s why we spend a considerable amount of time at Evolve validating and verifying data. Not only do we check that charts represent the actual raw data, we also check (and double-check) that respondent’s haven’t made any mistakes or misinterpreted the questions.
Of course, there is a lot more to it than that: axis checks, statistical checks, verbatim versus qualitative data checks – all play an important part in the reliability and actionability of our data.
No matter which research company you use, always make sure exactly how they, at the simplest level, do not make the kind of mistakes that News Channel 9 did.
Posted on Fri, Jun 05, 2009
Obviously, the best way to run a really effective and enlightening focus group is to hire Evolve, but sometimes pesky budgets can stand in your way.
If you are conducting groups yourself then follow the tips below:
- Preparation: Write down everything you want to know: You only have an hour and a half to get answers and that time goes by really quickly. Sort out the essential questions from the nice to have. If you have time, you can ask your nice-to-haves.
- Practice, practice, practice: Run through your moderators guide umpteen times. It’s important that you know your material. Memorizing the order of your questions isn’t important since you’ll be jumping back and forth anyway. However, you do need to know exactly what must be covered.
- Be flexible: People won’t speak about topics in the order that you have them in your moderators guide. Be prepared to jump around – remember, you are trying to keep the session as close to a conversation as possible. See above.
- Ignorance is focus group bliss: Claiming ignorance is a great tool for getting respondents to elaborate on their ideas. I often use the line, “Hmmm, in England we don’t run across that – what do you mean?” Remember, they’re the expert…that’s why you want to talk with them.
- Dress for the occasion: As a moderator, you’ll need to appear as approachable as possible. While sharp suits and ties may look great, it can also make you appear to be aloof and too business-like. Jeans and t-shirts are great for younger respondents, casual attire for after-work general population groups. Of course, a suit is certainly acceptable when speaking to execs. If in doubt, business casual.
Next week we’ll post more focus group advice. We’ll cover recruiting, time management and dealing with tricky respondents.
Posted on Thu, Jun 04, 2009
Next week the best marketers in OKC will be annouced at the annual Excellence In Marketing Awards.
There were a record number of entries this year which tells me that we’re in for a treat.
The event, hosted by AMAOKC, will be held at the Will Rogers Theater on Western Avenue on Thursday June 11 from 11:30 to 1:00pm.