Why We Study User Experience [FREE DOWNLOAD] | Zizzo Group

Why We Study User Experience [FREE DOWNLOAD]

As an engagement marketing agency, website development is one of the most time- and resource-intensive services we provide. And, for many of our clients, a website is the single biggest digital marketing expenditure it will ever make.

While a custom-built website may not fit into your budget, studying how users interact with your current website may be. Called a user experience (UX) audit, it allows you to see patterns of behavior in site visitors as they attempt to reach their goals.

 

What does it accomplish?

We study how users interact with your website as it currently exists with the goal of improving its usability, accessibility and efficiency. This adds up to more conversions and a better customer experience.

While it won’t solve all your website woes, it can answer some really good and important questions, like:

  • What’s working (and what’s not)?
  • What does your user need (and does your site satisfy that)?
  • What information you’re collecting (and what should be collected)?
  • What can be changed (and what impact those changes made)?
  • Can my site be simplified (and to what extent)?

Increasing Conversions

When we talk about increasing conversions, we’re talking about meaningful interactions that can be directly applied to your business success (i.e. more customers, more sales, more money). In terms of website use, these take the form of:

  • More leads
  • More purchases
  • More information requests
  • More registrations
  • More subscriptions
  • More completed actions

Improving Experience

A website is only useful to your business objectives when it’s useful to your customers. Improving experience means improving the ease by which your customers accomplish a given task and how they feel while doing so. This can look like:

  • Easier access to information
  • Quicker task completion
  • Fewer support calls
  • Less task abandonment
  • Better vibes about your brand and organization

How is it done?

It takes time and skill to conduct a meaningful UX audit – but having the right tools sure helps. Our team can collect qualitative and quantitative user interaction data from a variety of sources, including:

  • Site analytics
  • Review of business and user objectives
  • Conversion metrics
  • Customer care data
  • Sales data
  • Traffic and engagement
  • Compliance with UX standards
  • Usability heuristics (heat mapping)
  • Customer surveys

What does it look like?

I’m glad you asked! For your viewing pleasure, we’ve compiled a perfunctory UX audit of interactions with our own homepage – complete with what’s working, what isn’t working and recommendations for improvement.

[DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE UX STUDY EXAMPLE]

When you go through the process of developing a website, you may think that its launch is the endpoint – it’s not. While launch is certainly an important milestone, a good website should be constantly growing, changing and evolving to meet your users’ needs.

By studying how visitors interact with your website, patterns of behavior begin to emerge. You can follow their user journeys and identify roadblocks as they attempt to reach their goals. While super-fascinating in its own right [insert geek squeak here], it also makes it easier to identify what changes can have the most impact on their overall user experience and your overall conversion performance.

By now you’re probably thinking, “Man, this sounds like some intensely nerdy stuff.” You’re not wrong. Fortunately, you have a partner in Zizzo Group who actually enjoys doing this. From user surveys to heat mapping, we can gather, analyze and synthesize your user experience data so it’s digestible and actionable. Just give us a call or shoot us an email to learn more about our digital research and consulting capabilities.

Talk about a great user experience, eh?

 


Since you’ve been so good this year – trust us, we’ve made our list and checked it twice – we want to give you something extra special: 12 Days of Zizzmas. Each business day between December 16 and 31, we’ll be posting a new piece of real, actionable insight designed to make the New Year your year. So check back daily and don’t be afraid to drop a comment if you like what you’ve read.

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