Pat’s Point of View

I spotted this in the TechSmith User Experience Newsletter. Although it talks specifically about using their Morae software package, the article by Todd Follansbee is rather useful:

Have you ever clicked a Google search result, taken one glance at the site, and clicked away? For whatever reason, that site made a bad first impression on you.

In this month’s guest-authored article, Todd Follansbee, lead consultant for Web Marketing Resources, shares how user testing can measure visitors’ first impressions of a Web site.

Todd discusses how to use personality profiles, find the best environment for testing, and provide a realistic “starting point” with Google. He lists specific questions to ask, and what you should learn from users’ answers.

Todd’s approach considers both traditional usability factors and persuasive elements of messaging, branding, and benefits.

“…if you cannot motivate the user to enter the site, good usability is wasted,” he said.

Todd often does his user testing on-site, in a business or a home. He uses Morae usability testing software to record users’ interactions with the Web site, uncover patterns in the data, and share highlight videos with stakeholders.

“Using Morae to record messaging, persona behavior and the persuasive elements of conversion will make you money both by improving your Web sites and offering new services as consultants,” he said.

This is a great example of the intersection between marketing and UX, and the approach is really how most usability ‘testing’ should be done in my opinion. Whilst I don’t use Morae myself, I think the general approach of gauging reactions to websites by first time users is very useful. The same results could be achieved using Camtasia (or similar) or without any software at all.

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