Testing users on your website and your competitors. It’s standard stuff

Tuesday 12 July 2011 - Filed under Usability News

When I first began conducting usability tests 7 years ago the internet was in usability terms still a ‘working progress’. Comparing your website to a competitors was far from a waste of time and money, however you were analyzing and testing websites that were riddled with flaws anyway and you didn’t need to be an expert to spot even the most ‘not so obvious’ issues.

At the time though website usability testing was very much in it’s infancy and not much else was done apart from getting your panel of participants in a classroom and monitoring their reaction and opinions afterwards. Like I said though most of the usability issues were pretty obvious and even when recorded from a survey the ability to draw meaningful conclusions was still quite sketchy.

Testing your competitors website against your own now is a logical move, and more often than not a necessity for a lot of companies because its a necessity to have a competitive website.

The revelations I have seen in recent years surprise me even when compared to the rookie mistakes and design catastrophes I witnessed in the early years. Nowadays in-depth competitor analysis tools are employed as part of the Testing Users experience, giving a user insight into the successes and failures of your competitors web presence.

The competitive study forms part of the in-depth user analysis as in my opinion any usability technique worth its salt employs a ‘multiphase’ testing approach.

How meaningful this is the data you get back on your competitors website?

The honest answer is more often than not I find that when a clients web presence’s are compared to their competitors its the latter who come out with better user feedback. Remember though your motives for wanting to compare your web presence and your competitors is likely to be because they are having or are perceived to be having more success.

I can tell you though chances are that if there is a high negativity from user’s testing your site the chances are most of it is easy to remedy. I’ve never had a client complain about receiving negative feedback, because clients who approach Testing Users in the first place recognize that chances are their product or service isn’t in a bubble and they want to be told straight what there up against. More importantly though if you can gain an insight into how your competitor approaches their online solution any positives can ultimately be applied to you own business. Let’s not forget as well any negative feedback can be a powerful motivator for your team.

Ultimately though that’s the fundamental principle of Usability Testing, to analyze what’s there and improve it.

On the other hand you may discover that the testing feedback confirms your website is better than your competitors. If so congratulate yourself but don’t have a party just yet because when it comes to usability or the internet in general any advantage or gain is potentially only temporary and has to be monitored and innovated all the time.

When Testing user reports come back from our panel and all the data is finalized into the bespoke document, the pendulum as a general rule seems to swing close to around 60% in either direction. So either 60% better or 60% worse than your competitor (approximately).

It’s by no means unheard of to have differences in comparison score tests of just a percent or two. When this is the case, we point you towards the individual elements and component scores, which may vary greatly.

Bad or good it gives real insight to improve and monitor your usability metrics. Remember any usability enhancements made will again probably only be temporary.

In my experience I have seen organizations achieve massive success on the back on the back of Comparative Competition Analysis. Pretty much instant results where sales revenue has increased 29% in the first quarter after the implementation of one simple design change observed on a competitors website.

Claire Philips said this:

” We knew our website was dated and needed some work, the competition comparison element of the Testing Users analysis unexpectedly turned out to be the most valuable. Our competitors were always giving their visitors the option to ‘buy’ and ‘return to the store’, we did this but not with the regularity which made the difference. The suggestion was made in the recommendations part of the TU analysis. We did it and got results. We have plenty of people in our office who ‘think’ they know what’s wrong with our website but as we’ve seen no one one knows better about usability that the users. Good Work Testing Users.”

 

As impressive as 29% is there’s no magic wand, so I wont give you case studies or examples as it really would just sound like a sales pitch. Besides there’s too many variables, your competitor may be well established in your industry,  so I wont give you case studies or examples as it really would just sound like a sales pitch.  comer – the list is endless . The Competitor analysis also doesn’t really serve as the ‘dig deep fix’ neither, but short of looking through your competitors trash it will give you a valuable insight into design ideas that work for the user. So I wont give you case studies or examples as it really would just sound like a sales pitch.

 

2011-07-12  »  Sam