Web Usability Blog

Background

It has been argued (e.g. Penzo, 2005) that eye-tracking can augment standard usability testing methodologies by providing quantitative as well as qualitative data, and by providing insight into micro-behaviours on a site. Standard think-aloud usability testing provides qualitative information about what testers are looking at and how they feel about a web page, but eye tracking can provide a wealth of other information such as:

When we undertake usability testing we will usually ask users what they think they can do on a site. We would argue that on an effective web site users can answer this question reasonably accurately within a second or two. Unfortunately, in many cases users struggle to answer this simple question or get it 'wrong'.Recently, we did some work for a company that rents out holiday homes. On the home page was a picture of a rather nice Golden Retriever. Nice of course if you like dogs - and if it had been relevant to the holiday home offer. Unfortunately some of our testers got the wrong end of the stick and initially thought the site might be for a boarding kennels. Another of our testers clearly didn't like dogs - 'it's a slobbering dog' - and was clearly put off. The dog was simply the wrong image, there was no other context. If it had been shown being walked by people having a nice time by their holiday home it might have been fine, but on his own he was a 'bad dog'!

We love trigger words because users love trigger words. Good trigger words improve the 'scent' of a link enormously.

We have recently conducted some user testing on of one of our client's websites on mobile devices. They sell investment products so it was largely an information site. It was a fascinating exercise in many ways, but what particularly surprised me was how different users' behaviours were when using their mobiles to browse the web.

Having recently acquired a shiny new (and very expensive) eyetracker we were keen to understand how best to use it. So we sent one of our staff off on a suitable training course. Our chap came back with lots of good new approaches and techniques but what surprised me was that no mention had been made of what I see as the single biggest benefit.

Graham Charlton's interesting article for eConsultancy (How retailers make January sales easier for customers, posted 5th January 2011) made us think how different user behaviour can be during sale times. Users are more inclined to be in browse mode, browsing the sale items with no specific requirements in mind, but keen to hunt down a bargain. Conversely, they may have pre-researched their sales requirements and be very specific in their search - looking for a specific electrical item at a discount or a particular dress for a special occasion for example. They therefore want to be able to be as broad or as specific as they choose when filtering sale products.

It is noticeable when observing user testing sessions, that some users are reluctant to enter text in search boxes if it already contains some text e.g. the word 'Search'. Our advice is that, like Google, the search box should be empty. However, we are often told by clients, with words in their search boxes, that they have been advised this is necessary to comply with accessibility guidelines.

Regular watchers of usability testing sessions will be very aware that users rarely appear to look on the right hand side of the page. Often sites will put information that is key to a user journey on the right of the page that gets missed. On a site we tested recently what was, in effect, the main navigation was on the right hand side of the page and users struggled to find it.