FOCUS GROUPS AND SURVEYS

These are not in-house focus groups — don’t use employees and friends — you need to find your intended audience and have that group participate in these tests. The only way to do this correctly is to employ market researchers with Internet testing experience or to use a service, like OTIVO (mentioned previously). Such services can be expensive, but they are necessary because this is where you can discover, prior to opening your site to the general public, if you have any features that your website’s typical customers will find problematic or annoying.

Focus group testing includes asking these potential users about their expectations and usage, such as:

• How often do you shop online?
• What items do you most often buy online?
• After viewing the first page of this website, do you know what’s in this site?
• Do you feel that the information provided on the home page is informative and useful?

Give the testing company your customer experience map so the focus group can set up various scenarios typifying an average customer. The tester then should give you a report comparing the different approaches the individual members of the focus group used to navigate your website. In this way you can determine what will work best for your customers.

The company that you choose to conduct these tests should be prepared to provide you with a complete report at the end of the testing period. This report should include:

• A short executive summary.
• Description of methodology.
• Key findings.
• Recommended actions.
• Summary of user comments.
• The full results (including any handwritten notes gathered during the testing, should be made available upon request).

There are two advantages to taking this approach. One is that once you have the results from the focus group testing you can intelligently change content organization and navigation structure as needed. The other is that the results will help you to understand your website from a customer’s perspective, allowing you to refocus your site’s future development on your customer’s experience.

You could possibly cut the costs a bit by using a formal random-sample survey which means the marketing firm would not need to have access to a computer for each individual but would call individuals, ask them to use your site, and to then fill out a questionnaire.