Can a 10 year old understand your site and what you do?
Well, that should tell you something.
The best way to look to improve your website is to have someone like your 10 year old nephew review it or your uncle, Dad, next door neighbour. Whomever you know that is not at all interested in the internet and knows nothing about your business. Yes, that is the person you want to evaluate your site.
First, you need to show them your homepage (without any preempting) and ask if they know what type of business the page represents. They can’t ask questions and you can’t explain.
What did they say? If the answer was exactly what you do, then great, well done you. If there was a lot floundering and question asking you need to figure out why. You website concept needs to come across quickly. You may not be able to give an idea of the exact in and outs of your business, but if you sell something, physical or a service, your customer should be able to figure that out within seconds.
This is a great litmus test to use whenever you make change to your website or want to tweak things for improvement. If you have a specific goal in mind for a landing page, or product, then this is the quick and easy way to verify your concept will work.
Second, ask your person to try and complete a conversion on your site. If you are a shop, ask them to try to buy something. If you run a blog, ask them to read something and leave a comment. If you want people to sign up to your newsletter ask if they can figure out how to do that. You get the idea.
How did that go? Did they need serious prompting, did you have to do lots of pointing on the screen? If not, again, well done, your website is in great shape. If you struggled with keeping your composure as your person got frustrated with trying to figure out what to do.. you will need to do some work.
Now go back and walk your helper through the process one step at a time. After each step ask them if they could see how/why to do it and note down all of the reasons they could or couldn’t. As you go through your site you will hear things you don’t want to and things you have probably never heard before.
Now before you disregard this internet philistine’s opinion as unworthy, keep in mind that any person who can find a single fault or is confused on your site, will most likely represent the top 10 things that all people will struggle with on your site. The popular belief in user testing is that you need lots and lots of people to evaluate, this is not true. Usually 1-3 looking at your site will uncover all of its major issues.
Conclusion. If you are looking for a quick and essentially free way of finding ways to improve your site, this is it. Asking just a few people you know who are not familiar with what you do or even better not regular internet users, will give you some of the most helpful feedback. The hardest part for you will be letting you ego listen to their criticism, take it on board, and do something about improving it.
[…] b. If you are spending time talking but not selling, it’s time to review your message. Is your website shouting to the world what you do? Is it a bit wishy washy, or so broad that it could mean anything to anyone? It is sometimes hard to evaluate your business message when you are the one closest to it, so ask a few people unrelated to the business what they think you do. There is some great advice in this post, My Grandma hates my website! […]
[…] b. If you are spending time talking but not selling, it’s time to review your message. Is your website shouting to the world what you do? Is it a bit wishy washy, or so broad that it could mean anything to anyone? It is sometimes hard to evaluate your business message when you are the one closest to it, so ask a few people unrelated to the business what they think you do. There is some great advice in this post, My Grandma hates my website! […]
[…] b. If you are spending time talking but not selling, it’s time to review your message. Is your website shouting to the world what you do? Is it a bit wishy washy, or so broad that it could mean anything to anyone? It is sometimes hard to evaluate your business message when you are the one closest to it, so ask a few people unrelated to the business what they think you do. There is some great advice in this post, My Grandma hates my website! […]