With continuous AB-testing to world-class user experience

Just a few years ago, when a company was looking to give its website a facelift, they would start with the visual design before testing how the style would work in practice. Nowadays, usability is the starting point of an online journey and the foundation of visual design. And most importantly: it brings great cost and time savings!

Creating an easy-to-use online service requires accurate data collected over a long period of time regarding the customers’ behavior and needs with regard to using the service. Therefore, analytics and design go hand-in-hand if a company wants an effective online service for the long term. It’s a good idea to start with the common best practices and to develop them on the basis of ongoing AB-testing.

Web pages are often the first point of contact between the customer and the brand, which makes it vital to invest in them – and especially from the customer’s point of view. Because customer-friendliness and the ease of use of the service clearly translate into continuous business growth.

How can you test the functionality of your online service?

Below are a few simple steps to start testing of your online services:

1. Identify a bottle neck in your online service, such as a page that does not achieve the desired result despite traffic.

2. Set-up user tracking software (e.g. Hotjar, CrazyEgg, Solteq’s Deep Vision).

3. Study the analytics to spot bottlenecks, for instance, a missing product description or an unclear form.

4. Fix the bottleneck and carry out an A/B test using, for instance, Google Optimize or Visual Website Optimizer.

5. Create the final version, move it to production and keep monitoring the results.

Testing should not be a one-off – make sure that it’s continuous

Maintaining a good user experience requires ongoing testing. Build different test versions for small user groups. Come up with different hypotheses and verify them or, if necessary, create new ones.

It’s a good idea to start lightly. The initial tests don’t need to be complex multiple variable tests. It can be a case of changing a header, editing paragraphs, etc.

You can test your hypotheses on your own web pages using free A/B testing tools, such as the aforesaid Google Optimize. Always keep track of your results to see if the change makes a difference.

If you don’t have the time yourself, you can also get started with a simple audit, and Solteq can help with that. Online service audits seek bottlenecks, i.e. sections of the site where users get stuck.

Get in touch and we can plan testing together and continue to an analysis of the results!