Passive User Tests To Improve Conversion Rates Justin Rondeau Director of Optimization

What do you think of when I say

‘User Testing’?

THAT’S JUST HALF OF IT!

ACTIVE USER TESTING

PASSIVE USER TESTING

Active User Tests: A user test where they user is aware they are in a testing environemnt.

SURVEYS WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE THINKING

Survey Pros1. Quick Detailed Responses

2. Easy To Segment Data To Find Trends

3. Know Exactly What Your Customer Thinks

Survey Cons1. Only a Subset of Audience

2. Inaccuracies Due to Question Construction

3. Lots of External Variables

Tech To Use

Protip:Trigger QUICK surveys at key times, e.g., abandonment, after purchase! …and…

Use These Types Of Questions• Was it was easy to find what you were looking for? • Were the words/vocab used to define categories/sub-categories clear to you? • Do you have any suggestions to improve our website navigation? • Does our website look credible to you? • Is our pricing clear? • Is there anything else you’d like to know before signing up with us? • Will you shop with us again? Why/why not? • Do you think the form has any confusing/unnecessary input fields?

USABILITY TESTS LITERALLY SIT DOWN AND WATCH THEM USE YOUR SITE

Usability Tests Pros1. Individual & Detailed Responses

2. Relatively Easy To Recruit

Usability Tests Cons1. Expensive (If True Lab)

2. Small Sample Size (if on Budget)

3. Time Consuming

Tech To Use

Tech To Use

Problems With Active User Tests1. Hawthorne Effect

2. Survey Bias

3. Researcher’s Bias

4. Non Response Bias

“Act as you normally would…”

Problems With Active User Tests1. Hawthorne Effect

2. Survey Bias

3. Researcher’s Bias

4. Non Response Bias

Problems With Active User Tests1. Hawthorne Effect

2. Survey Bias

3. Researcher’s Bias

4. Non Response Bias

Research Question:

“How Much Do You Love Star Wars?”

Problems With Active User Tests1. Hawthorne Effect

2. Survey Bias

3. Researcher’s Bias

4. Non Response Bias

Target Market

Target Market

Biggest Problem With Active User Tests:

BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT YOU SAY & WHAT YOU DO

Passive User Tests: A user test where they user is unaware they are in a testing environment.

HEATMAPS WHERE YOUR USERS ARE CLICKING (ON AVERAGE)

What you can learn1. Where your visitors are clicking. (Aggregate)

2. Where your visitors are scrolling.

…or more importantly where they aren’t clicking or scrolling.

Example40.9% Increase In Sales When We Actually Made The Link Clickable…

…Go Figure.

Tough RealizationOnly 6% of traffic made it this far…

RECORDINGS WHAT YOUR VISITORS ARE ACTUALLY DOING

What you can learn1. How individuals are using your site.

2. Points of frustration on your page.

3. Your visitors page journey.

What you can learn1. We noticed visitors consistently scrolled first instead of filling out the form.

2. Realized they were looking for price.

3. Came up with better designs that addressed this issue.

FORM ANALYTICS WHICH FIELDS ARE PROBLEMATIC

What you can learn1. Which fields are causing form drop off.

2. Which fields are confusing.

3. Which fields aren’t causing problems.

4. Oh Yeah! Form Conversion Rate :)

FUNNEL VISUALIZATION

SEE WHERE VISITORS DROP OFF

What you can learn1. Easily identify holes in funnel

2. Pick your next page to update, run a more in depth test, or split test a new hypothesis.

CUSTOMER SERVICE QUESTIONS

WHAT THEY REALLY THINK

Top Customer Service Questions1. What are the top 3 questions you get from potential customers? 2. What do you answer to these questions? 3. Are there any particular aspects of X that people don’t understand? 4. What aspects of X do people like the most/least? 5. Have we missed anything important? Got something to add?

Protip:ASK CUSTOMER SERVICE EACH WEEK THE TOP 5 ISSUES

SALES QUESTIONS WHAT WILL CONVINCE YOUR CUSTOMER TO BUY

Top Sales Question1. What are the top 3 questions you get from potential customers? 2. What do you answer to these questions? 3. What is the biggest barrier keeping people from buying your product? 4. Are there any specific selling points that work particularly well? If so, which ones? 5. Have we missed anything important? Got something to add?

Passive User Tests

Why?1. An example of what your customer actually does vs. what they say.

2. Only limitation is traffic

3. Identifies structural issues that bypass test periods.

QUESTIONS?CONTACT INFO EMAIL: JUSTIN.RONDEAU@DIGITALMARKETER.COM TWITTER: @JTRONDEAU LINKEDIN: linkedin.com/in/jtrondeau