Website reviews
A poor user experience can cause customers to abandon your site and therefore cost you conversions. The only way to find out what customers think and to find out how they use your site is to ask, watch and listen to them using it. I can usability test your site or even your competitors’ sites.
Expert Evaluation
- A review of your site covering key user journeys
- Any issues I find will be investigated during the usability testing
Usability Testing
- Testing with real people on mobile, tablet and desktop
- Participants will be matched to your website’s demographic
Competitor Reviews
- A review of your competitor websites
- What do they do differently?
- What can you learn from them?
My 5 Step Process
In a meeting or call, we will discuss your website’s goals, known areas of concern, your audience, your brand, key products and user journeys.
I’ll ask you some questions about your business and look at any data you have, such as your Google Analytics.
After reviewing the findings of the Discovery Stage and any additional data I can get my hands on, I will document some scenarios to test which will form the basis of a test plan.
Once you’ve reviewed and signed this off, onto Step Three.
Factoring in your budget, the objectives of the testing and the scenarios, we can decide the format of the testing.
Generally this will be remote user testing.
Decisions to make will include devices to test on, how many participants and the type of participants. For example a mix of existing or registered customers or people that have never even heard of your brand.
Next I create all the plans for you to approve so I can start the research.
I will write a test plan for your feedback and approval, outlining exactly what will be tested and how.
I will also document all the various stages of the project and timescales I will work to – I hate to miss a deadline.
Once you have approved this document, I can start the reviews and testing.
Now I undertake all of the work we have agreed, which generally is:
Expert Evaluation
- In order to completely familiarise myself with your website, I will conduct an evaluation of your site and include my findings & recommendations in the final report.
- Also any issues that I see, I can be sure to look out for during the usability testing.
Usability Testing
- This is where customers get to use your site and I get to watch and listen to them. The number of participants and how the test is conducted does vary form project to project, but generally if it is remote user testing there will be up to 15 participants – that’s a lot of videos for me to watch. Don’t worry, you don’t have to watch them all – I will highlight the best (or maybe the worst) bits and include them within my report.
Competitor Review
- I will review an agreed selection of your competitors and highlight key differences and things you could learn from them. This is a great step to repeat every 3 months to keep on eye on changes & developments they may make. I can also include some usability testing on competitor sites if required.
I find this is the most efficient order to complete the testing & reviews.
The Expert Evaluation allows me to get really familiar with your site so when I am carrying out the usability testing I have a deeper insight in to why or how a user might be doing something.
Finally completing the competitor review as the final stage is really useful, as any issues raised on your site during the usability testing can be crossed checked on the competitor sites. Do they have the same problems or do they maybe have a solution you can test on your site?
The Research Report - full of actionable insights
After I have reviewed your website, analysed the usability videos and completed any competitor reviews, I will write a full report which contains the following:
- Summary of testing & key observations
- Verbal responses from participants
- Number of issues found split down by area of your site
- Observation log for each user with recommended actions
- Full log sheet of all issues discovered during the three review stages
- A presentation of priority one issues including screenshots & video clips to share with your team members*. All other issues found will be included in the report.
I can present the full report to you in person or over a screen-share.
*For client confidentiality this not is included in my sample download.
Download my sample report now for more information. I have removed the website details but this is a real study and with only 3 participants I found over 40 issues impacting the usability of the website.
The Costs
My fee varies depending on the project size and scope, for example how many users we test and how many scenarios we cover. As a rough guide a study with 3 scenarios, 10 testers and a review of 3 competitor sites would start from £1,000 + any tester recruitment fees (approx. £65 per user).
Benefits of Usability Testing
Improve conversion rate & average order values by seeing changes that you can make that are customer driven.
Improve customer enjoyment and satisfaction by resolving bugs and issues discovered during testing.
Know the why behind what's not working on your website - the data only tells half the story
Gain a fresh perspective - usability testing helps you take a step back and focus on what matters to customers
I am a member of the Interaction Design Foundation, the world’s largest UX Design learning community.