Online Marketing Strategies from MarketerInsight

Complete Website Strategy: Why the User Experience has the highest impact on your brand as well as marketing ROI AND what you can do to improve it (special International Usability tips included).

Thanh Ngyuen, Senior Website Usability Consultant, BusinessOnLine

Usability is about ease of use - stop using the back button

• Having the right information
• Displaying the right information in a way that makes sense to the user
• Helping the user to find what they are looking for without annoying them too much

Why Usability?

• Reason 1 - Your Competitors
  • Ease of use based on your competitors (See Charles Schwab)
  • The next link on the search results - they need to find what they are looking for
• Reason 2 - The site was built with business objectives first
  • Users are being left out during planning phases
• Reason 3 - Need for increased conversion
  • Case study on Hard Conversions is presented
• Other reasons
  • Saves time and money & increases sales
  • Think usability sooner than later

Having the right information

• User Persona
  • Qualitative vs. Quantitative
  • Goals & Attitudes related to Behaviors
  • Have more than 1 persona due to personal attitudes
• Navigation/Information Architecture
  • Labels
  • Organization
    • We all have a mental model of where things should be
    • Websites should provide information based on what they are expecting
    • Universal set of behaviors is the root (ie. reading left to right in the U.S.)
    • Subset is audience-specific behaviors (persona’s apply here)
    • Universal cognitive behaviors
      • Images rule
      • We look large to small
      • Irregular to regular
      • Information is seen dark to light
      • Scan saturated to less saturated
  • Audience specific behavior study - Satisfy the persona
    * International Audience
    o Option to switch language
    o Include a flog icon
    o literal translation is not enough
    * Annoy the user only when they are in a good mood
    * Pull messaging
    o When interaction makes sense after a user has accomplished the goal

What are some things that I can do to help my site?

1. Mistake 1 - Not giving clear indicators
2. Mistake 2 - Asking for something without giving something in return
3. Mistake 3 - Not including a Search Box (50% split between search vs. browser users)
4. Mistake 4 - Examples of a design which facilitates scanning
   • Create content that facilitates this behavior (the most important information above the fold)
   • Chunk information into groups for understanding
5. Mistake 5 - Putting elements in the wrong place on the website
   • Back button upper left corner
   • Banner ad top and right
   • Internal page links in top lefthand corner
   • Shopping cart, support,search help all in upper righthand corner

Conclusion

1. Usability is ease of use
2. Why Usability
   • Competitive advantage
   • Site created only with business objectives
   • ROI
3. Foundation: Follow learned conventions and best practices
4. Refine: Personas
   • Creating a usable website is an art and a science
5. Users first; monetize second
   • Google uses this approach

Open Q & A

http://www.businessol.com/usability-blog