The 12 Days of UseTube

In the spirit of the season, I am proposing that this list of items temporarily replace the traditional Yuletide selections from the original Twelve Days of Christmas, and by temporarily, I mean for just as long as you are reading this post, then go have fun with your friends and family.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, the Powers-that-be gave to me,

Twelve Remote User Sessions

Eleven Top Priorities

Ten Recommended Heuristics

Nine Crimes against Aesthetics

Eight Errors Prevented

Seven Elements and Principles of Design

Six Well Paid Test Participants

Five Golden Triangles (Thanks Gord)

Four Improved Calls-to-Action

Three Paper Prototypes

Two Eye Tracking Stations

And An Appropriate Target Demographic

Happy Holidays everyone,
whatever it is that you celebrate!

Tagged

I came into work today to the realization that i had been tagged, which intrigued me. I received an email from the president of our organization, Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro, mentioning that he had tagged, among others, me. Looking further into it, this tagging appears to be slowly moving over the blogosphere attempting to put faces back onto many of the posters that have become finely tuned blogging machines. And this I can get into! I sincerely believe that every one of us brings something different to the table through our experiences and the application of ourselves in different areas of life, so this game of tag is more than welcome. Similar to the 43things.com website, which is worth a look if you haven't seen it already, which asks its audience to list 43 things they want to do before they die.

But I digress... Here are my 5 things that people generally don't know about me.

1. On my high school graduation day, as I walked across the stage, I was pulled, fully unexpectedly, to the side in mid-cross and was presented with the district scholarship for art. I believe the district encompassed 2 or 3 other high schools in Chilliwack (you will know it by the smell of manure being spread on the corn fields as you pass through to Vancouver, British Columbia). I was able to put that scholarship towards an education in Graphic Design.
   
   
2. I have never lived outside of British Columbia. I have lived in numerous places within the province, including the north (Smithers), the interior (Revelstoke), Vancouver Island - which is one of my favourite places in the world to be (Comox & Campbell River), and in and around Vancouver, the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley (Chilliwack, Surrey, Vancouver and North Vancouver).
   
   
3. I had never been on a plane until i was 26 years old, and thus, had never travelled overseas until earlier this year, when I went with my wife to the UK.
   
   
4. While playing hockey for what must have been the ROI Theatre sponsored Atom team in about 1984 ( I know, this dates me, I was about 9 at the time if you wanted to do the math), I won the coveted Esso "Most Improved Player" award for my team. This sounds good, but the other two awards were "Most Valuable Player" and, I believe, "Most Sportsmanlike Player", so this put me in the "Not as bad as i used to be" category. But I was really proud at the time, and have the medal to this day.
   
   
5. Aaaaaand, the last bit for now is that i am a big, big fan of music, but you will never find me on a dance floor. You wouldn't know it by looking at me, but I've got no rhythm... ;)

I tag Frank Spillers, Jesper Rønn-Jensen, Thomas Watson Steen

Bye for now

Good-bye Joe

I would like to pay my respects to Joseph Barbera.

The last remaining member of the great Hanna-Barbera duo has passed away at the age of 95, succeeding his partner, Bill Hanna, who passed away in 2001. The influence of Hanna-Barbera on me through all the creations they brought to life is unmeasurable. It is likely that I wouldn't be the person I am today if I wasn't able to indulge my creative tendencies on the exploits of Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, and some of the lesser known favourites from the shorts, Hong Kong Phooey, Huckleberry Hound, Quickdraw McGraw, Augie Doggy and Daddy Doggie, and I loved it when the Hanna Barbera world came together in the Wacky Races.

Not many people know this about me, but Scooby Doo was my first muse and the reason i picked up a pencil to illustrate in the first place. This initial inspiration led me to enrol in every possible art class throughout high school and eventually to University for Graphic Design. I hold a special place in my heart for that little bit of magic that Hanna Barbera brought to me, and that i still feel every time i turn on the TV and see an episode of Snagglepuss or the Yogi Bear Christmas Special.

It saddened me that I pulled up the Hannabarbera.com website (redirected to warnerbrothers.com as the rights were purchased a few years ago) to find not one mention of the death of Joe. But, I suppose, it doesn't matter what he meant to them because I know what he meant to me.

Thank you Joe,
Cory

SocNet - Leveraging Social Networking for Your Site (Part 1 of 3)

SocNet? Yes, you heard me right…

Lately, just like in the movie 1984, I've been trying to reduce my vocabulary by combining existing words. This one is long overdue, and stands for, of course, Social Networking.

Much has been discussed about the buzz around the success of sites like YouTube, Myspace and Facebook, and how they put the power of the internet back into the hands of the user. And as much as the “wow” factor is perpetually newsworthy, much less has been discussed about how you can leverage these types of applications, or simply learn from them to improve the relationship between you and your audience. What has been discovered is that internet users like to have control, and whether site owners like it or not, they have it. They like to be heard, they like to be popular, they like to be unique and to be listened to, and this is what SocNet has empowered them with.

Now how can you empower your audience? Well, understanding first that, depending on the type of site that you have, there can be many levels to your audience’s onsite relationship, and as Rick Tobin mentions in his latest sponsoredb2b blog post, “You see, it’s not about getting more traffic; it’s about doing more with your traffic.”

Attracting new visitors:

Myspace: Having a MySpace page is a good way to start at the grassroots level, incurring friends participating in group discussions, establishing your site and the people (or personality) of your organization as unique and personable. What this means is that there is potential for referrals as long as you manage your brand reputation effectively.

The other way to dramatically increase activity on your site is… and this is a longshot… if you have a tool or application that can make the life of MySpace users that much easier, then promote it heavily, and it will get eaten up. An example of this comes from the most recent Hitwise report on Consumer Generated Media, where Photobucket, an image hosting website has had a 43% increase in visits from March to September 2006, with 8 times the number of visits as the competitors such as Flickr. And, as of September, 57 % of all of that traffic was driven by MySpace… Something to chew on anyways.

Youtube: Not only is YouTube the Wunderkind of online video because they allow your friends and family to keep up with your zany college antics by visiting the YouTube site and dialing up your videos. It is also one more way to increase the engagement level of users on your own website too. Sites like YouTube and Google Video are not terribly selfish, and are willing to spread the wealth by offering site owners the code that enables you to place whatever video you want on your own website, saving you the bandwidth of serving the video yourself.

Also, if your site is one that benefits by having longer viewing sessions, for instance, an advertising model, then incorporating video is a natural fit. According to the same Hitwise report mentioned above, the average visitor session at YouTube runs approximately 18 and a half minutes, meaning plenty of exposure to your video content, but advertising as well.

Blog: Well, this one you’re more likely to be pretty familiar with, considering a blog is where you found this article. Anyways, blogs are strong tools for a slow build, with subscribers spreading the word, attracting an audience of “like types”. Normally a vocal group, your Blog audience will let you know if they are stirred into discussion by offering their opinion.

Reputation Management is extremely important at all times, especially with blogs. With so much content being generated by users, some of it is bound to be negative. But if you're proactive and have the capacity to diffuse heated situations and are up for some healthy, sometimes passionate discussion, then you can weather that storm, and gain respect from those reading about you as the "faceless organization."

Here are a few of my favorites just to give you a head start, comment to your heart’s content:

Web Analytics World
Sponsored B2B
SEO Space
Out Of My Gord
SearchTank
Demystifying Usability

Professional Communities: There are also a number of highly recommended professional communities to establish yourself and your site in. Ryze, or LinkedIn, are 2 such communities that allow professionals to connect in much the same way that MySpace has done for the average user, except the popularity on these types of sites is much more focused to the industry that the user is involved in. By establishing yourself as an authority in your industry and collecting a list of other connections that recommend you as well, there is plenty of opportunity to leverage that into networking or career opportunities, consulting offers, new ventures or business deals, as indicated by the contact options in your own profile.

This is something that cannot be faked, and as long as you have a good product, or offer some knowledge in your area of expertise that others can find informative or innovative, then put yourself out there.

Orkut (a Google property) is similar in fashion to both LinkedIn and Ryze, but is somewhat less focused on business or industry, and is open to general profiles as well. Orkut was, until recently, unavailable to the public, but for those waiting to get an invite from the exclusive club don’t have to wait anymore, now you’re allowed through the front door.

This is one article in a series of 3 articles about ways to leverage SocNet throughout the entire relationship of your audience to the website. This article is looking specifically into how to attract new visitors using consumer generated media, and will be followed by 2 more articles:

Improving the Experience Once Your Audience is on the Site
And
Post Purchase or Continuing the Relationship.

SES Chicago - Gord Hotchkiss Discusses the Eye-Tracking Study

Enquiro's CEO and President, Gord Hotchkiss, is interviewed by TopRank Blog at SES Chicago today about the new MSN, Yahoo and Google Eye-Tracking Report. In the interview Gord touches on some of the key points in the study including how the MSN and Yahoo users experience on Google appeared to be considerably more favorable than on their engine of choice. Also discusses the issue of perceived relevancy on the engines. For more information, visit this review of the report.

SponsoredB2B Touts the Impact of Sponsored on Offline Conversions

A good friend of mine, Rick Tobin from SponsoredB2B wrote today about a new study released by ROIResearch on quantifying the effect of sponsored search on offline purchases. This is the age old question, and by age, I mean as far back as when blinking banner ads encroached upon our beautifully designed plain HTML 6 page sites.

And, even though this study doesn't give us a real strategic look at how this connection can be improved or harnessed to maximum effect, it does give us some details on the correlation between the Sponsored Campaign and the Offline Sale, proving what we have suspected all along, that Brand and Search do have a considerable impact.

Rick has introduced another study as well by MarketingSherpa from earlier this year that asked Brand Marketers what marketing tactics they felt were either very effective or somewhat effective, and based on that input, Paid Search Advertising was second overall with 32% selecting it as "very effective".

What this information is proving is that, what we felt was happening strongly coincides with what we now know IS happening, and that all this research is helping to push this analytics oddity into the light.

iPod Huge for the Holidays, Podcasting... Not so Much

On Tuesday, Apple shares hit an all-time high, climbing as far as $88.14. Expectations are high this holiday season for the iPod, where analysts are expecting that 14 million of the units will have been sold by the end of the quarter, even with the launch of the brand new Microsoft Zune last week.

There has also been a research study performed recently by the PEW Internet & American Life Project about the adoption rate of podcasts, originally named after the iPod itself, as it was this technology that gave Podcasts a reason for being. This study states that only12% of internet users polled claimed to have ever downloaded a podcast, and only 1% said that they would download a podcast on a typical day. Compare that to the growth of internet users with an iPod or another MP3 player, which earlier this year rose to 26%. Now, an iPod or MP3 player isn't necessary in order to subscribe, watch or listen to podcasts, but they certainly make it easier to tune into your favourite podcast whenever or wherever you are.

Now, iTunes has come a long way in making podcasts more accessible; building them into a seamless menu option in the interface, sorting the library into so many categories that you are bound to find something that you like, and allowing anyone to submit a podcast of their own and make it available through the iTunes Store. But because this is an industry that isn't really generating a lot of income at the moment, there aren't really a lot of advertising dollars behind it and podcasting .

Overall, very few internet users are hooked on podcasting. It has the potential that blogs are experiencing now with the widespread grassroots attraction, but this time the larger media companies decided to get in a little earlier. Though, I have to say, they have done it tastefully for the most part.

For the larger organizations, this is a practice in brand awareness and community rather than pushing a product. And for them to appeal to today's user, having a good product isn't enough, they really have to appeal to a lifestyle and generate a feeling. Why not appeal to more of the human senses than reading does? Why not use video or audio? It's like TV, made for you, chosen by you, that you can watch wherever, and whenever you want.

Tell me that doesn't sound like a good idea...
Spread the Podcast Love.

Here are a few of the Podcasts that I get a kick out of, feel free to share any that you enjoy or find useful:

• The Onion Radio News
• Strong Bad by Homestarrunner
• or almost anything from within the Technology Category

Engagement vs. Recall - Small Eye-Tracking Usability Study

Recently at Enquiro, I performed a private study for one of our clients who services both B2C and B2B customers with a fairly short consideration process. Because it was a private study, I am not at liberty to share the name of the organization, but I did want to share some of the findings, as I thought they might be of interest to you.

This was a fairly small usability study, consisting of 2 groups of 5 users. These users were prompted with either (1) a stripped back text based page with a selection of information, one text based and one simple graphical call-to-action or (2) a graphic intensive page, including engaging imagery, much more visual calls-to-action integrated into that imagery, and the same selection of information as the text based page and a video element.

Where we found the biggest difference, as indicated by the title of the article, was between the engagement on the page and the recall of information. It was expected that participants would be able to recall more of the information from the text oriented page, and this expectation was met, recalling 3 times as much specific information as those viewing the alternate graphic page.

But this appeared to be where the benefits of the text based page ceased. As mentioned above, there was one simple graphical call-to-action on this page that, according to our eye-tracking of each of the participants, appeared to have performed like a fish out of water. This is indicated by the white box in the heatmap on the left. Instead of an attractant, this element acted to deflect the eyes of the participants, causing a banner blindness effect, even though the call-to-action fit well into the organization's look and feel.

What this shows is that each page has its own momentum, if you're going to give the user a primarily text based page, then design accordingly, by placing the calls-to-action inline and be sure that they are mainly text based themselves.

As for the Graphic based page, participants found it difficult to recall specific information after viewing the graphic based page, however, they did have a considerably higher impression and comfort level with it. They were more willing to visually explore each of the page areas, more willing to take it all in.

By reviewing actions on the page during the sessions as well as responses from an exit survey that were collected there was a considerable variation in the level of impression between both types of pages. When converting the likert scale to numerical values, the Graphic page scored a 29 out of a possible 35 when participants were asked to rate their level of comfort with submitting a quote on this site, as compared to a score of 23 for the Text based page. And when comparing how quickly and easily they felt they could have submitted a quote, the variation widened further, with the participants from the Graphic session scoring 30 out of 35 compared to 22 by the Text based participants.

The elements on the Graphic page struck a level of comfort with the participants, which, depending on who you talk to, is worth more to you than your customer remembering specific information. The participants from the Graphic page session took a feeling away with them, a feeling that they will associate with the brand going forward.

Specifically those participants who viewed the video embedded into the page. Which was a 30 second commercial spot, allowing the blend of offline and online marketing efforts to engage the potential customer. One of those participants even made a point of expressing specifically that she "felt they really care about me" after watching the spot. Not only that, but after viewing, she was far more willing to spend much more time on the site.

All in all, you can learn a little bit from everyone. In this case it really showed that, by beginning with the end in mind, your customer or potential customer can always leave with what's important to them. If it's facts, then display it like facts, if it's a feeling, then generate a feeling, just know what it is you want them to leave with, otherwise you might both be empty handed.

LiveLogger & World Usability Day Sessions

Well, the Usability Testing Methods webinar that i attended as part of World Usability Day was informative and well worth the time. Frank Spillers, who has been performing Usability tests for 10 years now was the host. Much of the first part of the presentation was to help level the table a bit, bringing those with no experience in the field up to speed on some of the simple goals (ease of use), different types of basic Usability testing (down the hallway, low-fidelity, mixed-fidelity and high-fidelity) and measurement types (qualitative vs. quantitative). And with the best practices stuff out of the way, we delved into Frank's insight and experience in testing.

It has always been my belief that everyone brings something different to the table, so for all of us in the Usability field, fresh or experienced it can't hurt to have an open mind when it comes to different styles. For instance, some of the major players in the industry have found the most effective number of participants to be 5 in order to minimize costs and time. But experts like Frank tend to think that if most of the time is spent in the setup of the study, then what is an extra couple of hours running a few more participants through in order to have some more concrete data to supply the client.

The Forgotten Metrics
Frank also discussed what are referred to as the "Forgotten Metrics", which include ease of learnability and ease of understanding, which can give valuable insight into your study, often times more value than the ever important "time on task" metric. One practice for determining ease of learnability is what is called a loop-back task, which essentially has the participant perform a very similar task to an earlier task to determine if they are able to streamline the experience this time around.

Time on Task is a metric that can also be misinterpreted. There are 2 trains of thought when it comes to this one, and i tend to believe that as long as a user is moving towards their goal successfully, then time is not as much of an issue. And Frank is of the same opinion on this issue. As long as, when you tie in the quantitative and qualitative results, the user has a positive experience on the site, because ultimately that is what they will bring with them. If you have the analytics in place already, or if you are measuring 2 very like sites, then it's worth it, but otherwise, don't knock yourself out over it.

LiveLogger
The LiveLogger tool for Usability testing was released today to mark World Usability Day by Experience Dynamics. This appears to be a really helpful and simple tool that shows the most benefit in letting you focus on your participant, the real reason you're performing your Usability test in the first place. What it does is acts as a dynamic notebook that tracks the time for you and allows you to choose from certain actions so that when you choose that action, it marks the time and lets you make a note regarding the circumstances. As anyone trying to take these types of notes can agree to, it's not always easy to keep this type of information in order and still pay full attention to your participant. Of course the tool is much more dynamic than that, for instance, all of the export features that allow you to categorize each of the user's data, from the errors that they experienced and any points of confusion along the way. But this is where i really saw the value in it.

The presentation itself was really worthwhile, Frank keeps you interested and brings a lot of insight that you can only get from spending this long in the industry. And their new product, LiveLogger, looks well worth a demo download. If you plan on performing a small usability study in the next little while, I would really recommend giving it a shot, it'll make organizing those sessions a lot easier.

Happy World Usability Day!

Congratulations to UPA on what looks to be a very successful World Usability Day, surpassing the number of events from last year! I myself am scheduled in for a webinar very soon, and am looking very forward to taking part. I will be posting some feedback on the session later on today. Great job on pushing the industry forward!

A Second Life to Make a First Impression

If you're in or around my age, and so I don't have to say what my age is, I'll just assume that you are, then you are among the first generation to have grown up with computers, and have spent a fair amount of your youth dropping quarters into Gauntlet, Kung Fu and Street Fighter 2 down at your local arcade. During those years, you spent your days at school, and your nights playing outside with your friends or down at that same arcade spending your allowance. Being the first generation to really have grown up with this type of technology has skewed other generations opinions of us, and not always for the best. Video games are associated with little boys entertaining themselves, but it is likely that is the perception because that's what we did as children and no one before us really set the standard, so it's up to us to make a stand for our childish games!

Anyways, what I'm getting at is that since leaving school and moving into the real world, many of us have been partly shut off from the social routine that we enjoyed as kids. Many of us are employed, working full time in an engaging (or not) career and even married, meaning that you generally go to work, stay until the work is done, go home to your best friend, go to bed and do it all over again. We don't generally have the time that we did as kids to socialize every day and night of the week.

This is where I find sites like Second Life really fascinating. A good friend of mine introduced me to Second Life about a year ago and everytime i think about it, I find it fascinating! Linden (the company behind Second Life) has developed a virtual world that has been in existence since 2003 and can now claim to have almost 1.5 million inhabitants. See the trend below of search volume over the past couple of years:


What this means to those of us taking back our video game roots, is that social networking sites and applications like this give us the ability to interact with other people, all over the world, in a way that we haven't been able to since school. By signing up for an account with Second Life your daily routine doesn't have to change, and you're able to interact with groups or individuals all without leaving the couch, for as long or short a time as you'd like. There are many facets of this application that mimic the real world, even appealing to the desire for status. You can go so far as building a home and outfitting it with all the furniture, bells and whistles that you can think of. Of course, this requires a paid subscription to this virtual world, and for some it is well worth it, but I don't plan on going into that here!

The schoolyard used to be where we found out what was cool, who was a jerk, who had a crush on who, all of which really doesn't mean a thing on an individual basis, outside of enjoying the moment, but it's the moments that define us. We would be entirely different people if we didn't have the social interaction that we had as kids.

I'm not telling you to spend all your time ignoring the real world and spend all your time online in a quasi-real world, i mean, go to the pub if that's what you do. But for those of us that miss that comraderie, and that connection that you can make with a good friend, look into it. Those of us that got beat up in school, I'm sorry, there are nice people out there...

We're all Verklempt, Discuss Amongst Yourselves, We'll Give you a Topic... Google vs. MSN vs. Yahoo!

If you've read the original Google Eye-Tracking White Paper released by Enquiro, Eyetools and Did-It, you'll know the impact and discussion it has caused in the industry with the unveiling of the Golden Triangle and accompanying insights giving the search marketer an edge with their Google specific strategies. Quotes from this article have been picked up all over the industry, from sources such as Danny Sullivan and Anne Holland, and is used as training collateral for many organizations with an interest in online marketing.

Well, prepare yourselves because the next wave of insight is at the industry's doorstep! A few of us here at Enquiro have been working dilligently on the last few pieces of information for the new Eye-Tracking White Paper with Gord Hotchkiss at the helm, a White Paper that broadens the scope of the original by 2 engines, MSN and Yahoo! This new paper definitely offers insights for the search marketers out there by digging into topics like the the effect of sponsored listings on each engine by area, banner blindness and the growth of navigational search. But this paper also has plenty of new information that those usability and the onsite experience junkies will find very interesting. For instance, have you ever thought about the impact that the MSN or Yahoo! portal page might have on the rest of the search experience? How positive or negative news stories or images might affect the success of the searchers experience? No? How about perceived relevancy on the engines? Which engine is really the most relevant? Is Google always number one? We all have our theories, and this paper will help to quantify some of them, and generate discussion around others..

Do we have your attention? I haven't seen the final version yet, but I'm really curious! Be sure to check it out!

Download a sample of the impending report here.

Of Ajax, Accessibility and Web 2.0

Earlier this week Target.com was granted some grace from a lawsuit being posed against them by the advocates for the blind. The lawsuit charges that Target refused to make their e-commerce website accessible to the software that allows those with vision impairments to engage with websites. And the Courts have delayed any injunctions. According to the National Federation for the Blind, all the site would require would be alt-tags on the images of the site, whereas Target claims that the site is fine, and is accessible to the average blind person.

Now, this seems like a simple fix in this case, surely a few hours labor from Target's IT team, a couple of database tweaks and all should be well, but it does bring up a good point. With everyone focused on the future, as commendable as that is, and all the advancements we have seen during this fascinating transition to the world of Web 2.0, including the world of social networking, Second Life and MySpace, we have to make sure that everyone can come along for the ride. W3C has worked dillgently to try to enforce accessibility, and in some cases this has been upheld, but for every case that is successful, there are many that aren't. The Judge in the Target case stated that the "Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires all commercial locations to be accessible to citizens with disabilities, extends to Web sites as well as physical retail locations", which makes it pretty clear that accessibility will not be overlooked, at least for ecommerce sites.

The thing is, the Target site isn't even using any fancy new technology like AJAX to liquify the checkout process, so as we move forward, and the larger ecommerce and B2B sites with a mass appeal begin to adopt the 2.0 technologies, consider the Target scenario and the web guidelines that are the sole reason for W3C's existence. If we get it right from the beginning, the future could look a lot brighter for us all, even for those with vision impairments.

Google Goes Multivariate

Goole has just released a brand new robust tool for Multivariate Testing, Google Website Optimizer. I don't know if you've seen this yet, but it is really worth looking into if you have been considering performing some landing page testing, as i'm sure all of you have. The tool appears to be very easy to use, requiring some code to be placed on your landing page, much like Google Analytics, and in those coded areas, it allows you to provide alternative blocks of text, images, buttons, headlines or other variables that you want to test.

The reporting offers you real and estimated data based on actual actions taken from your landing page, allowing you to immediately see which combinations of variables are the most successful. For instance, some of the columns include Estimated Conversion Rate Range, which gives a range of conversion success in comparison to the original combination of variables, the Chance to Beat Original or Chance to Beat All, which show the probability of any combination outperforming the original layout or all the other combinations of layouts. And the quantifiable column, Observed Improvement is a measure of improvement over the original layout, although Google does state that a larger amount of data is required before putting too much stock in this one.

Like I said, this is a great tool, and best of all it's free! Well, it's free as long as you have a Google Adwords account, but if you have been waffling about starting a PPC campaign, this would be the time to do it in my opinion, this is a great opportunity to immediately test and refine your landing pages with realtime data. For much more insight into Sponsored Campaigns, visit Rick Tobin's blog sponsoredb2b.blogspot.com.

Technorati Profile!

Technorati Profile

Usability and Omniture Analytics in the B2B Field

Qualitative and Quantitative, Yin and Yang… There is not enough talk between the two worlds. In most Usability studies, professionals are tasked with improving the user experience, including the reduction of errors, time on task and subjective impression of a site without consideration for measuring quantifiable metrics. Site improvement recommendations, user feedback and observations are gathered, poured over and delivered to the client for the improvement of the site in question. Though the majority of usability professionals are not currently using any type of quantifiable metrics (as documented by the Usability Professionals Association in a survey from the summer of 2005), it is widely agreed upon that there should be standardized metrics in place for tracking the ROI for user-centered design processes. But with the business-to-business field, this can be a long cycle before any improvement is seen, as it is understood that the purchasing funnel is far more diverse and considerably longer than any business-to-consumer transaction.

Just recently, Omniture released a paper discussing the 5 Most Critical Steps to Track in B2B Online Marketing, which is a powerful piece that simply outlines ways to track some of the most important metrics in the B2B field. Not only does it outline these steps in a simple and tactical way, it inadvertently acknowledges, at least in a couple of areas, the best ways to track the success of usability improvements. In this document, they discuss the fact that the "B2B Buying Cycle encompasses a series of micro-conversions as prospects progress through different phases," and that these micro-conversions can act as "leading indicators of offline sales," allowing you to see improvement online and assume improvement offline, depending on the integration of your offline sales metrics to your analytics. Now, with any Usability Study, you will need a problem to fix, whether it’s known and you have some hypotheses about what to expect and how to approach the issue, or it’s unknown and is flushed out during the process of testing; but if these are being performed on a B2B type site, then the known issue can likely be tagged to any one or combination of these types of micro-conversions, or if the issue arises through testing, then creating a dashboard to measure the improvement historically as well as after the fact should be a simple process. These micro-conversions can be something as simple as video views, product comparison tools or case study downloads, depending on the target you are testing against and the issue you have on the site.

This brings up the point that, if you do not have any type of analytics in place like Omniture Sitecatalyst, or Hitbox, then ROI or online measurement are terms that you should put out of your mind. Keep things relatively qualitative and measure your offline successes and customer feedback. But if you do have an analytics solution, then you have an immediate way to quantify the success of your qualitative usability study.

Homeruns, Research and the Holes in Between

There have been two Whitepapers published recently that make some grand statements surrounding the effectiveness that Brand has on the search process when it pertains to purchases, and truthfully something isn’t sitting right with me. These studies are specific to e-commerce sites affiliated with the company that has produced the paper, so there is intimate availability of information, and the control over the environment that can be of great benefit when compiling this level of information. The first paper goes on to describe that it has measured the whole search process including first and last click, type and number of words used, whether there were brand terms visible in the clicked search result and so on. It should also be said that the sole focus of that initial Whitepaper was to measure PPC clickthroughs and paths with no attention paid to the Organic. Now, research variables have to be controlled, but some of the conclusions drawn are a bit hefty for the narrow PPC focus, considering the weight that Organic Results have on the search process, both Brand and otherwise.

One of the main conclusions drawn from the first study is that the highest conversion rate occurred when the user’s first and last click were both on a Branded result, citing a conversion rate of 9.30%, which is impressive, I mean who wouldn’t want a 9.30% conversion rate? However, when it is followed up with “Yet, when the first click is on a non-brand term and the last click is on a brand term, the conversion rate is almost as high…”, there is a little bit less value in ensuring that your PPC ads are stuffed with Branded terms, especially when the study does not measure any clicks in between the first and last for branded or non-branded terms. In the study, there were some users that clicked on as many as 9 results, granted these are extreme cases.

But again, the top and side sponsored ads on search results pages have been proven to be clicked farther into the buying funnel, when users are in more of a purchase consideration phase, which would highly improve the conversion rate, especially when the conversion rate is based solely on sponsored ads. The first study is aimed at the 28% of users that use search in the purchase phase of the buying funnel, when over 70% are using it to find out the best solution for their needs, and with our findings in the Google Eye-Tracking study, anywhere from 10-18% of users actually click on the sponsored results, meaning that this sample is roughly 15% of 28% of the users that came to the site through search, so take the conversion rates with a grain of salt. It would be like basing the success of a baseball game strictly on the home runs. Which are always fun to watch, and get a lot of attention, but if one team hits a big home run and the other team is hitting the pitcher all over the park, then my money would be on the better all around team.

The two other “key findings” are; the more times a user clicks on a company’s ad, the more interested they are in purchasing, and the more searches that are performed using unique keywords, the more interested the user is in purchasing. These are two “key” findings that one would expect to find, and if they didn’t find them, then one would expect that there was something wrong with either the ads or the site itself. If a user wasn’t interested in purchasing or learning anything more about a product, then chances are they don’t need or want it that badly. Not only do you have to catch the user in the right phase of the buying funnel, but you also need to appeal to their needs, as simplified by Maslow’s Hierarchy, which contends that “as humans meet 'basic needs', they seek to satisfy successively 'higher needs' that occupy a set hierarchy.” This hierarchy, for those that aren’t familiar with it, consists of the following needs; physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem and actualization. For a good reference site for this information, visit its Wikipedia page.

This first paper concludes with “implications and recommendations” for marketers. For starters, they cite search as “a process”, which is definitely true, stating that “when the searcher is at the end of the research process, that’s when brand terms are far more likely to be entered”, which makes sense. Considering at this point, the small percentage of users that actually click sponsored ads would know what they are looking for, because search IS a process.

They also state that “the interactions between brand and non-brand terms have a significant impact on the total success of a paid search campaign”, even though the results that were pulled from the first few pages of this study state specifically that there was very little difference when comparing the results between the conversion rate when the first and last click were Brand (9.3%) and first click was non-brand and the last click was Brand (8.7%). What concerns me is that they are using this information to make recommendations to Marketers. There is not enough proof in the pudding for me to take this advice either way. What doesn’t concern me is that the recommendation they’re making is “manage brand and non-brand terms together”, which is common sense for anyone running a PPC campaign.

In fact, in each of the recommendations made, it may have been more helpful to have done some insightful research into their client’s analytics packages instead of running a full scale research project. Analytics can be the key to the success of your site, tracking Paid Campaigns, visitor traffic patterns, conversion paths and specific dashboards for reporting what is important to you can help you and your site much more than inconclusive numbers. Manoj Jasra from Enquiro has written a series of articles to help guide you to the right analytics solutions and how to make it work for you. And once you have a solution you are satisfied with, ensure that you are measuring the right metrics or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to ensure the success of your site and analytics tracking. Jody Nimetz has written another series of articles specifically about KPIs for different types of sites.

Carrying through to the second study were the methods of measurement, including the first and last clicks without much attention paid to the “pogo-sticking” that occurs between the time that a user initially clicks on a listing and the transaction that takes place at the end of this process. And the unfortunate thing is that, unless a number of these clients are in a competitive landscape and you can measure the back and forth between sites, it is near impossible to gauge exactly what the user did when they were not searching for and clicking on one of this company’s client’s sites. There are so many variables to take into consideration outside of placement of natural and paid listings and the success of interaction between them, including the impression that the actual site that the user ends up on, and as mentioned above, the stage in the buying funnel they are in or how seriously they are looking. So, this second study is a good example of some of the items covered above (Brand vs. Non-Brand, Paid vs. Natural Listings and First and Last Click), and from a tactical standpoint offers some interesting information, but don’t forget those site specific KPIs and Analytics solutions to really be able to tell how well your campaign and site are performing. We can’t know all the variables surrounding the competitiveness of the sites used in this study, but if you are paying close attention to your site analytics, usability and competitive market, then you can use this information as a baseline and measure more variables important to you to get a better idea of the bigger picture.

Read this research paper with a grain of salt, and don’t expect to get out of it what they’re proclaiming with the title of it; “What You Need to Know When Allocating Your Search Budget”, but do take from it what you can and what can be helpful to you. Research is important in our industry, it will be what pushes us ahead, lets us learn what our customers are doing, how they are using the internet, and how the internet plays out in the role of the entire conversion process, both online and offline. It is important for us to be learning all the time, and so my advice to you is to not be concerned with hitting home runs, they might look great on the highlight reels, but they don’t necessarily win you the game. Let’s just concentrate on getting on base and playing each inning without any errors.

New Articles Coming Soon!

There are a couple of posts that can be expected in very short order.