What is User Experience?

UX or user experience is referred as the entire experience of people as they use particular system, product or service. It would include the experiential, meaningful, practical, affective and valuable aspects of interaction between a computer and human and also the product ownership. In addition, it would include the perceptions of an individual about system aspects like ease of use, efficiency and utility. User experience might also be considered as subjective in nature into the degree which is about individual perception as well as thought along with respect to the system.

In addition, user experience is also dynamic since it is modified constantly over time because of changing usage circumstances as well as changes to the individual systems and the wider usage context wherein they could be found. Indeed, user experience is about focusing in having deep understanding with regards to the users – their needs, abilities, values and limitations. It should also consider the business goals as well as objectives of the group that manages the project. Best practices of UX will improve the quality of the interaction of the user and the perceptions of the products and services.

History

Early developments about user experience could be traced back into the machine age which includes the 19 and also the early 20^th centuries. Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor were considered to be indeed in the forefront of exploring great and new ways in order to make human labor a lot more efficient as well as productive. The pioneering research of Taylor into the efficiency of interactions between the workers and their tools is considered as the earliest example which resembles the fundamentals of user experience today. And it was then brought to wider knowledge in the mid of 1990s by Donald Norman therefore until now it plays of great role in the industry already.

Factors that Influence User Experience

There are indeed things that should be considered with regards to the provided information in order to achieve valuable and meaningful UX. And these factors are the following:

• There is a need for the content to be original and should fulfil certain need.
• The site should be easy to use.
• Content of the site should be navigable as well as locatable both off site and on site
• Brand, identity, image and some other design elements are being used in order to evoke emotion as well as appreciation
• Users should believe and trust what you tell them
• Content should be accessible to those people even with disabilities

In order to come up with exemplary user experience meeting the needs of the customer is indeed the first requirement. Next would be elegance and simplicity that will produce products which is a joy to use and own. True user experience will go far beyond the idea of giving the customers with what they want or rendering them a checklist of features. But, in order to achieve user experience in optimum quality there should be a seamless merging of the services of multiple disciplines.

— Slimane Zouggari

What is Usability Testing?

Usability testing is a technique being used in user-centered interaction design in order to evaluate product through testing it into the users. This could be seen as irreplaceable usability practice because it will give direct input whether how real users would use the system. This is considered to be in contrast with the usability inspection methods wherein experts would use different methods in evaluating user interface without having to involve the users.

In addition, usability testing focuses with measuring human-made products capacity in terms of meeting the intended purpose. Some of the products that would commonly benefit from this kind of testing are consumer products, foods, web applications and sites, documents, devices and computer interfaces. Usability testing indeed measures the usability or the ease of use of a certain object or set of objects wherein general human and computer interaction studies would attempt formulating universal principles.

How to do it?

If you have already planned your test and you have also recruited test participants then its tie to conduct the test. In order to do so, you must choose which moderating technique that is right for the test then set up the equipment and space and make sure that you should consider pilot test before testing with having actual participants.

Moderating Techniques would include the following:

• Concurrent Think Aloud or CTA which is used in order to understand the thoughts of participants once they interact with product through having them think aloud as they work. It has this goal of encouraging participants to keep running stream of consciousness once they work.
• In Retrospective Think Aloud or RTA wherein the moderator would ask the participants to retrace the steps once the session is complete. Most of the time participants will watch a video replaying their actions which doesn’t contain patterns that are eye-gaze.
• Concurrent Probing or CP would need that once participants work on with certain tasks once they say or do something interesting and unique the researcher would now ask follow up questions.
• Retrospective Probing or RP would need waiting up until the session is already completed and so ask questions about the actions and thoughts of the participants.

Before the idea of conducting the said usability test, there is a need to make sure that you have almost all the needed materials, documentation and consents checked and prepared. You could run the pilot test at least a day or two before the first session allowing you to have time dealing with any technical issues.

You should bear in mind that usability testing is considered not just a milestone that should be checked off during project schedule. There is a need to have a goal why they are testing and implementing the rules as well.

Benefits of Usability Testing

There are indeed numbers of benefits that usability testing could offer. Some of these benefits are the following:

• Learn whether the participants are able to complete specific tasks successfully
• Identify whether how long it would take to complete the specified tasks
• Find out whether participants are satisfied with your site and some other products or services
• Identify also the changes needed in order to improve user experience, satisfaction and performance as well
• Analyse the performance in order to see whether it meets the usability of the devices

— Slimane Zouggari

LIFT Model or Landing Page Influence Function for Tests is a conversion optimization framework developed to use in analysing conversion pages as well as develop hypotheses. There are numbers of individuals that are looking for tips or best practices with regards to improving conversion rates on landing pages as well as website conversion funnels. Indeed, tips will offer some value but their usefulness could be limited outside of the appropriate context.

Some of the tips that could lift your conversion rates would include the following:

• Enlarging the action buttons
• Cutting the copy in half
• Minimizing the number of the layout columns
• Reducing the number of the form fields
• Including value proposition in high contrast and left-justified headline of only two lines or even less

After doing those things mentioned above, what are you going to do now? You might run out of ideas on whether what to test. And with that, structured methodology that is used in evaluating pages as well as developing valid test hypotheses could play of great role in lifting conversion rate.

Six Conversion Factors

In connection, this LIFT model would offer conversion optimization framework that shows the six conversion factors allowing you to evaluate landing pages from a perspective of a page visitor. These six conversion factors of the LIFT model are the following:

Value Proposition

LIFT model will show that value proportion is the vehicle providing the potential for conversion rate therefore it is considered as the most important among the six conversion factors. And the other five conversion factors are referred as conversion drivers or inhibitors.

Relevance

You might first ask whether the landing page relates to what the visitor thought they are going to see. The relevance of the value proposition as well as context of the source media is definitely critical. The page should use terms that your visitors relate to and also be consistent with incoming link or the visitor would be disoriented and so leave the page.

Clarity

The landing page should articulate clearly the value of proposition and also call to action. Clarity is considered as the most common among the six factors that most marketers struggle with. There are two aspects of clarity which should be analysed are content and design. Designing for will create unimpeded eye flow and content clarity ensures the text and images combine in order to minimize comprehension time.

Urgency

Is there an indication that the action should be taken right now? Urgency has two components and these are internal and external. Internal urgency is about how the visitor feels upon arrival while external are the influences marketer could introduce to the visitors. Internal urgency is pre-existing once the visitor arrives but the tone of the presentation, deadlines and offers could all influence the external urgency.

Anxiety

What are possible misgivings that the visitor could have with regards to undertaking the conversion action? Anxiety is considered as a function of credibility that you have built with the visitor and so the trust that you ask them to have as well.

Distraction

Are there items on the page that might divert your visitor away from the goal? Making conversion decision is less likely to happen if there are more visual inputs as well as action options that the visitors should process. The conversion rate might increase if you are to minimize certain distractions and this will also enhance user experience.

— Slimane Zouggari

Heuristic in computer science, mathematical optimization and artificial intelligence is a technique designed to solve problems more quickly when certain classic method is too slow. Its usability is also used to find approximate solution when certain classic method fails to look for an exact and specific solution in rising problem. Below are the ten heuristics you can use for user interface design.

Visibility of System Status

Within the reasonable time, the system must always inform the users regarding the arising happening, through an appropriate feedback.

Match Between System and Real World

Using words, concepts or phrases, the system must speak the language of the user that can be familiar to them when optimizing user experience, rather than relying to the system-oriented terms. By following the conventions of the real world, the information can appear in natural and logical order.

User Control and Freedom

The users often opt for wrong system function to use and need a vivid mark “emergency exit” in order to leave the unwanted state, without going anywhere else, such as extended dialogue. It supports undo and redo.

Standards and Consistency

The user must not need to wonder if different words, situations or even actions are meaning the same thing. Just follow the platform conventions.

Error Prevention

Even better than a good error message is the careful design, that has the ability to prevent the problem from happening in the first place. Either eliminates the error-prone conditions or investigate for them and present the user with option for confirmation before they take step to commit the action, thus user experience is enhanced.

Recognize Rather than Recall

Minimize the memory loads of the user by making the actions, objects and options apparent. The user will no longer have to remember the data from a part of a dialogue to another. The instruction for use regarding the system must be visible and easily retrievable as much as possible.

Flexibility and Efficiency to Use

The accelerators, which can be unseen by the new users can often speed up the interaction to the users who are expert such that system can deliver to both experienced and inexperienced users. Allow the users to tailor frequent actions pertaining to a certain situation.

Aesthetic and Minimalist Design

The dialogues must not contain data that is irrelevant and rarely needed. Even the extra unit of information in a certain dialogue competes with relevant units of data and diminishes their relative visibility.

Help to Recognize Diagnose and Recover

Error message must not be expressed in a plain language, constructively, indicate the problem precisely and suggest a specific solution for usability.

Assistance and Documentation

Although its better is a system can be used even without documentation, it can be necessary to provide assistance and documentation. Any data must be searchable, concentrate on the task of user, list concrete procedure to be used, and not be too huge.

Theses heuristics are refined based on factor analysis of the 249 usability problems to derive set of heuristics, with a maximum explanatory ability, which results on these revised set of heuristics.

— Slimane Zouggari

The user experience (UX) is focusing on having a deep understanding of the users, their abilities, their needs, their value, as well as their limitations. At the same time, it takes into account the goals and objectives of business of a certain group that manages the project. The best practice of UX is to promote enhancement to the quality of the interaction of the users with perceptions of a certain products and related services.  At UX core, it is to ensure that the users are finding value on what a provider is giving to them.

Being said, Peter Morville represents his User Experience Honycomb with the following seven available factors.

Useful

As a practitioner, perhaps you might not just simply settle down to the lines draw by the higher executives. You need courage and creativity to determine whether the offered products as well as your system are useful and to have applicable idea to the craft, together with the medium to define an innovative solution, which is useful for user experience.

Usable

It is vital for everyone to have ease of use, and still the perspective of the human computer and the interface-centered techniques doesn’t address all dimensions of website designing. In a short say, usability is necessary but not adequate.

Desirable

With this UX, people’s quest for efficiency should be tempered by an appreciation for the value and power of images, brand, identity and other available elements of an emotional design.

Findable

Products must be easy to find, as well as in the instance of information and digital products. Their contents must be easy to find also. Thus, striving to design a navigable website, together with locatable items can allow the customers look easily for their very needs.

Accessible

Just like what we have in two-story supermarkets, they have walkalators to allow the pushcarts and disabled persons to conveniently go up and down without a fuss in order to access with products offered in both floors. Same thing must be in you website and in your product; it must be accessible to all regardless of who they are, thus user experience is escalated while gaining more and more consumers.

Credible

Credibility must be maintained from the beginning where your branding evolves because the trust of consumers does not just end by buying your product and settling their payments. If you fail to maintain credible name in the marketplace, they will potentially look for their needs elsewhere.

Valuable

The product must offer value to the business, which can be acquired also from consumers who use it. In order to maintain value, the product you offered must be willing to solve a 100% problem of users in order for it to succeed.

The success of a product will certainly depend more than just having a usability and utility alone. Any products that are known to be useful, usable, desirable, findable, accessible, credible and valuable are more likely to have a place and will succeed in the marketplace, thus the factor regarding user experience is important to stay ahead of the competition.

— Slimane Zouggari

One fascinating aspects of a consumer behavior is the eye tracking. The data that you can earn from eye tracking will not just turn you into a proficient web designer, but as conversion optimize expert, content writer and online marketer at the same time. While doing this state of the art self-value, you can also foster user experience (UX) for your customers.

What is Eye Tracking?

Eye tracking has the ability to measure if where the people are looking on web page often and how long they stay in a certain area. It is visually presented and overlaid on the screen, which the subject was looked at. With the aid of eye tracking, you can quickly see where the persons are looking initially, secondly, thirdly, and so on. With it, you can also find out what are the things that users consider to escalate UX and find a place where most interesting information on screen frequently catches their attention, making them stay for a while.

Where to Focus When Having Eye Tracking?

So, you can begin seeing better results over your business and improve user experience towards your audience, here are the summarized data about the eye tracking test.

• Put your very valuable contents above the folds

Appealing, comprehensive, and highlighted message above the fold can attract customers and persuade them to buy on you.

• Put a call to action found to the bottom of you page

The bottom page is where people go after viewing your top fold so a call to action at this area will hit their senses.

• Highlight the headlines of your content

People are reading big, so bold the highlights the important data in your content.

• Use chunks of information to make it readable

Short paragraphs, with number list and bullets are enough to frame better user experience.

• Put much of white space

White space is good to allow the eye of the users to rest from crowd of letters, while facilitating movement to the entire space.

• Put importance to the left side of your page

It is a usual habit of people to read from the left, thus maximizing the content to the left side will look natural to their eye.

• Get rid of the banners

Banners are not important because readers often ignore it. Just remove it whenever you have another method to monetize your site.

• Use pictures of people in your content

The experts agreed that a picture of people in the content is good for a positive psychological reaction of understanding, identification and attraction.

Simply by giving extra attention to the eye tracking studies, you can help improve your website, your business, your conversions, your products and your services in a way you never thought possible. Most businesses that have web presence overlook the importance of UX, while making their contents a pain to the eye. The place where people always look is crucially important because it has an impact on the way they learn, the way they do, and the way they purchase.

— Slimane Zouggari