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The usability concept is understood as the measurement of the difference between the ideal interaction and the real one taken by our target audience.

At the start of the internet, both types of interactions (ideal and actual) differed greatly. There wasn’t much of a handicap for a user given the novelty of the web and the unlimited possibilities this new channel offered. You could double your conversion rates simply by solving design errors. Today, that time has passed and a usable site isn’t enough to convert, but only enough to reduce bounce rate and keep users on your site. Additionally, current website users are “impatient” in nature, considering the average wait time for a page to load before leaving a site is all but 5 seconds.

Jakob Nielsen, one of the top usability gurus, notes this when he mentions that the current user has gone from navigating through menus sequentially and slowly to scanning frantically through a website in seconds.

Ideally, you should not try to correct usability problems; rather extract the maximum potential from your products by relying on an excellent web user experience.

How do you get it?

Good design is not just a creative process.

The good designer and /or architect is one who tries to contrast his feelings with the end user’s perception in order to create the best web experience.

At the end the day, the outcome is still based on opinion since a UX expert still guesses what the end user really prefers. That is why it is necessary to use user testing in addition to a good creative process. This way, we blend the scientific with the creative.

What to do after the user testing?

Performing these tests before putting a site into production assures us that our design will avoid the interactions we don’t want, but is it foolproof?

The answer is no, since actual website users behave much differently than test subjects. This is due to the difference in conditions or restrictions in: web browser, internet connection speed, purpose of the visit, screen resolution, etc.

This brings us to the conclusion that once a site is live we need to collect information from users’ behavior to correct problems and keep improving the relationship between the user and the interface.
To try to quantify these problems and improve usability, we have different weapons:

• Traditional web analytics (WA: Web Analytics) to determine the specific interaction
• User experience analytics (WIA: Web Interaction Analytics) to test alternatives for improvement

Measuring usability with quantitative tools

In order to improve user interaction with our site, we can use three types of tools to help us quantitatively identify usability problems.

First, find out “what’s happening,” identify, and prioritize which areas of our site are creating problems (and how these obstacles influence conversions) using Web Analytics (WA) tools. Examples of these tools include Google Analytics and Omniture SiteCatalyst.

Once we have identified where to focus our efforts, we need to find as many usability issues as possible. This is where Web Interaction Analytics (WIA) comes into play. WIA shows us where our users do not click, where they move the mouse, how far they scroll, how much of the page is viewed, how users behave in a process, etc. In short, these tools explain the “how“ at both the page and process levels, aggregated or segmented, and these tools even allow us to observe the unique behaviors of individual users.

We can summarize the use of these tools, mentioning the most common usability problems we are trying to solve:

1.) Poor visibility of key page elements.
2.) User interactions are not as expected.
3.) Users do not submit or provide correct information on forms.
4.) Users behave unpredictably.

We can divide the set of tools available to analyze user behavior into two categories: hardware (ex. Eye Tracking Tools), and software (ex. Customer Experience Analytics such as ClickTale). We will concentrate on the second group which is much more readily available and affordable.

Once we know how the user interacted and why the problem occurred, we can move on to the stage of building a better alternative.

Imagine web analytics identifies a page with a high abandonment rate and WIA tools show that users did not see the call-to-action button to buy. Now it’s time to build an alternate page with a much more visible button. Is this the end of the process?

Again the answer is no, because if we directly substitute this alternative, we could not determine whether this new page has helped lower the abandonment rate or if it is another factor affecting the results (such as a campaign, technical error, etc.)?

What can we do?

This is where we use online testing tools (not to be confused with user testing) like A/B or Multivariate testing. The method is quite simple, both the original and alternate pages are live and the testing platform randomly sends samples of users to either page for a proper head-to-head analysis. Examples of these tools include Google Website Optimizer, Optimizely, and Test & Target.

Tools to measure user interaction

We’ll discuss how to use WIA tools to solve the usability problems listed above.

1.) Poor visibility of key web page elements

We can conduct a scroll analysis to determine whether or not an area or element of a page is visible by viewing the distance users have scrolled down the page. In the screen shots we see an example of this where red areas were viewed by more users.

We then complement this analysis by measuring the amount of time spent at each point on the page, using the same color scheme.

2.) User interactions are not as expected.

To view visitors’ actions (and compare them to your own expectations) whether a hover or click, link or plain text, there are so-called Heatmaps. Following the same color scheme as before, we see that the areas with darker reds received much more attention from users. These heatmaps are segmented according to the behavior or characteristics of users, so that we can identify blurred or misleading promotions.

3.) Users do not submit or provide correct information on forms.
In this case, the key functionality is the analysis of forms — not just to measure completion rates, but to highlight which fields caused abandonment, how long it took to fill in each field, which fields were skipped, which contained errors, etc.

4.) Users behave unpredictably.
Attempting to view a recording of every visit to a website seems more like torture than research. The task becomes much less daunting when we select a particular segment for analysis. This can be users who had a particular error, abandoned within one step of conversion, had problems with payment, etc.

To select and view a sample of visits, we do have a user test with real traffic and therefore with actual purchase intent.

Measure, but to what extent?

In conclusion, we can say that today, the problem is not the lack of tools available to conduct usability analysis. The problem is rather knowing how to optimally use these tools without becoming slaves to them for hours, which is another blog post altogether.

About the Author

By Enric Quintero, director of Metriplica.com, division specializing in online measurement of Multiplica, seminar leader for Google Analytics and Director of Graduate Web Analytics Studies at OBS University in Barcelona.

Asia

Tokyo, Japan

This is the birth place of hi-tech toilets. Need I write more? Seriously, these TOTOs you won’t find in Kansas, but they are just one example of the constant hi-tech innovation coming out of Japan, including the big names we have come to know and love such as Samsung, Panasonic and Sony, among many others.

Singapore

Although the population is just under four million people, Singapore is impressing the world with its technology innovations, especially in the realm of “urban mobility”. A partnership with MIT called SMART for Singapore – MIT Alliance For Research & Technology, facilitates the efficient and effective use of public transportation. For example, taxis as well as buses are able to come on a real-time need basis so you are never left stranded for extended periods of time nor made to feel like you are in a sardine can.

Europe

Helsinki, Finland

This relatively quiet city is home to major hi-tech and creative design. Here you can find more cell phones per capita than Japan or America (does Nokia ring a bell?) and 70% of the population uses the internet. AND, Helsinki was heralded as the World Design Capital of the year. From their real-time public transportation system, to hi-tech cafes and new energy sources for heating up homes, Helsinki is creating hi-tech models for all of us to learn from.

North America

Silicon Valley, California

Intel, Google, Apple, Facebook, and hundreds of other household name brands have all come to set up camp in this microchip mega house located in the southern San Francisco Bay Area.

Seattle, Washington

Nobody knows how to make better use of their time staying out of the rain than the Seattleite techie. Being stuck indoors during most of the year due to the constant rainy/gray climate, brings out some major innovation and creativity. In 2009, Seattle’s South Lake Union district became Seattle’s new Hi-Tech hub and has since grown, seeing the likes of Amazon.com develop an 11 building campus six blocks long and many others following in its footsteps.

Middle East

Tel Aviv, Israel

Tel Aviv is the actual city that never sleeps where everyone is busy trying to turn their next big idea into reality. Although hi-tech centers are located throughout the country, Tel Aviv houses more hi-tech start-ups per square mile than any other city in the world. Not too shabby. And it just so happens that ClickTale is right in the middle of all the action

If you’re attending or want to meet up after the show, we would love to hear from you. Contact us here and we can set up a time or simply stop by our booth.

That wouldn’t make an interesting blog post, so now for the longer answer. Landing pages are critical for any promotion but especially so for paid marketing where a measured ROI is essential to your success. Your homepage is often designed to be a generic entry point to your brand and business, rendering the ability for a potential customer to find your intended conversion path very unlikely.

Today we would like to announce our partnership with Unbounce. Unbounce is a fast and powerful DIY landing page platform, that lets you create, publish and optimize landing pages without IT.

Easily track behavior on Unbounce landing pages with ClickTale

And best of all, you can easily drop your ClickTale tracking code into the page so that you can watch recordings and analyze heatmaps of exactly how your visitors are behaving inside the landing page. With that insight, you can immediately see what needs to be improved and make the necessary changes in seconds to boost your conversion.

The goal of Unbounce is to facilitate a simpler and more streamlined marketing workflow so your marketing team can focus on creating, publishing and measuring your campaigns without the usual bottleneck and delays associated with working with IT or software development.

The good people at Unbounce are offering ClickTale customers a great offer to get you started. Start a 30 day no-risk free trial now or get 50% off any plan for 3 months with code “clicktale503″.

So what are you waiting for? Time to build and optimize more effective landing pages.

Ever since opening our Pinterest account, we’ve been kvelling over the stunning infographics we’re finding.

Below is a list of our favorite infographics that we’ve found and pinned so far.

5. Social vs. Search

Aside from the fab Mexican wrestler theme, this eye-catching infographic is quite insightful in its comparison of Social Media vs. Search Marketing. In assessing the productivity of each individually for different tasks (lead generation, brand awareness, business visibility and interactivity), the overall proven outcome is that Social Media and Search Marketing work best hand-in hand.

4. The Startup Ecosystem

Infused with plenty of comedic value, The Startup Ecosystem walks viewers through the varying roles involved in creating a startup company.

3. Social Commerce

With a style similar to that of dolla dolla bills, this infographic gives basic examples of how consumers can easily be persuaded using simple marketing psychology tactics.

Some key points to focus on:

• 50% of shoppers make purchases based on social media recommendations.
• 77% of shoppers use reviews to make decisions.

2. The History of Marketing

This infographic has some really fun information regarding the evolution of modern day technology.

1. Mobile Marketing: What’s with the Attitudes?

This short and sweet infographic gives insights on consumers’ perspectives towards mobile marketing.

Key points:

• 85% of consumers would prefer to be contacted via SMS.
• Adverts should not be sent more than twice a month.

Honorable Mention: Local Search

This is a great length for an infographic, and I love the streamlined look of the 3 colors used. The graphics are modern and simple, and help to easily present the information.

Key points:

• Local search growth is being driven by better targeting, increased mobile usage (77.1 million mobile subscribers use local content) and improved product integration.
• Users often notice images/logos more.

If you’d like to schedule a meeting, just visit our Facebook Event Page or contact us to RSVP and let us know you’re coming.

Speakers scheduled to appear are some of the biggest and brightest in the industry including Bob Page of eBay, Steve Petitpas of Microsoft, Sharron J. Silva of the American Red Cross, and many others!

We’re giving away FREE and discounted tickets!! Make sure to Contact Us or comment below if you’re interested.