User Mental Model | Week 5 | Review

Structuring the website with the user's mental model

This is the fifth blog post as part of the series of blog posts in which I will sum up my learning experience with CXL Institute attending their Growth Marketing Minidegree.

Last week I talked about "Getting the most of user research and involving the user in the campaign design".

Today I will continue with " Testing campaign design with the user and website structure best practices" summing up my learning experience and review the following key takeaways:

#Testing Campaign Design with The User

Planning for a new campaign is all about ensuring that you are making the right decision, and here's where testing can be extremely helpful. Now when testing which design approach is best, you can run a preference test using tools like Usability hub or Helio where you can easily upload different design concepts and have a link to share with users asking them which they like the most, this is a great way also to move your design from personal preference base to database. Can't find users? well, tools like Ethnio, User interviews and Testing time could help.

There are more different test approaches to help, for instant Word Cloud Survey which is basically a test if the design reflects the Keywords you need it to reflect or not.
Also, there are tools like 5 sec Test and the first click helps for testing different website landing page designs before starting the actual build of the website or the landing page.

#Structuring website around the user's mental model 

Your website is the home of your business and the most crucial part of your marketing campaign, so when designing your website it is important that it reflects the user's mental model (user's perspective) so that the user can take the action and hit the buttons.
We can easily do that using a methodology called Card Sorting which enables us to begin to understand the user's mental model and to organize information around a structure that makes sense to them.
We start Card Sorting by Arranging individual cards so that they make sense to the user, Each Card represents a page or multiple pages on your site depending on its size. then you Give user cards and they organize them in 2 different categories: Open Card Sorting; in which users Organize these cards as they want. Each card has a website page name on it, and Closed Card Sorting; in which users organize these cards in predefined categories.

This helps you understand how your user structures and organize information. You can do this activity the way you like either physically in a post-it note and a table or using dedicated tools for this purpose.
Now when you have results after running this activity, you need to look for a common pattern, similar used words and trends.

#Website Prototype -- A No-Risk Process 

Building websites that support your marketing strategy can be expensive and time-consuming. If you get it wrong, it can be a costly mistake, leaving you with a site that fails to convert. That is why building a prototype is a no risky process because it’s based on testing a simple UI/UX before moving to build and execution of website which is the more expensive part. 

You can create the prototype using a tool like Balsamiq or manually with PowerPoint or something else, choose what suits you best then when finished with prototyping it's now the time to start usability testing; which focuses on 3 things A) does the user understand the concept behind the website prototype B) Can they find stuff they need and C) can they do stuff and take actions on the website. 
You can test between 3 to 6 people, run test time up to 40 mins and 20 mins for you to take notes and always remember what you're testing, you are testing basic usability not taste and not preference. if you can't find people to test with, the least you can do is to test with anybody you know outside of the company, it could be friends or family. when testing focus only on 3 tasks you need users to complete and avoid telling them what to do or how to do it, to get the best results. Ask them at the end of the test what they were thinking of trying to do the task, the questions in their heads and so on. Test frequently in multiple rounds with different people recommended getting the highest optimized 

version 

#Unfacilitated Usability Testing

Unfacilitated remote testing is a great alternative to the in-person testing we talked about earlier, it overcomes the difficulty over the testing approach we talked about earlier. it is very useful as It will allow you to test at a scale with less time consuming and less cost. but please be aware that nothing beats in-person testing. however, Unfalcitated remote testing is a good alternative, especially for international organizations.

How to do it? well, it is a very straightforward approach you can use zoom for meetings or you can use a specialized tool like Lookback. if you can't find users, a tool like UserZoom which is an enterprise-level tool will help you find users. also, there is a Maze tool that gives hard data to analyse users' behaviour.

#Campaign is launched -- What to do now?

After launching a campaign it's important to monitor how our campaign is performing and adjust it as it runs. there are two main directions to focus on after the campaign goes live (Post Launch)

• Analytics; Helps you understand where customers are leaving your website and know where they drop off. tools like Google Analytics could help.
• Screen Recording; Helps you understand why users/customers drop off and why they are leaving through watching their behaviour. tools like hotjar can help very much.

 Okay, now I know the where and why customers/Users drop off, how to fix that? well, A/B testing can very much help, Tools like Google optimize can help you start Multi-Variant Testing and the good news is that it's free, you may also consider an easier tool called Visual Website Optimizer. 

Now, in the case of a Low Traffic website Focus on testing close to point of conversion, meaning if my point of conversion is sales/checkout I will focus there on the checkout page or the path to the checkout page. you may also, focus more on Micro-conversion related when/if you have a problem with driving traffic to a website or something a bit far from the point of conversion, meaning small points of conversion that happens frequently. Limit the number of variations test one alternative and go for big changes rather than small ones. Go with the one that has the slightest better difference and don’t wait for big changes

In the case of a high traffic website, Complete doing the opposite of the above is what is needed.

More about Growth Channels in next's week blog post.