In the book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die Chip and Dan Heath describe the curse of knowledge. Simply stated when we know too much about a particular thing that knowledge keeps us from seeing what is wrong with it or how to improve it. This is particularly true when it comes to conversion rate optimization. Both marketers and designers are often too close to their websites. From a users perspective, they know exactly how to navigate their own sites and repeatedly take this for granted when in reality there may be uncovered opportunities for conversion improvement with usability testing. From a customers perspective marketers know their products inside and out and often replace the voice of the customer with their own opinion or what they think are the opinions of their customers. In both scenarios we’re too close to the problem and we suffer from the curse of knowledge.

Avoid the curse of knowledge with unbiased outside opinions. Here are three easy and quick solutions that you can implement today to get instant feedback from real unbiased users.

Feedbackarmy.com
This is a great site where you can get simple, cheap usability testing for your website. Just come up with 3 to 6 questions and for $10 bucks you can get 10 responses within 2 – 3 hours. No better way to get feedback for as low as the price of lunch.

Fivesecondtest.com
This is exactly what it says, tests in five seconds. They offer two types of tests, memory tests and click tests, and they literally take 3 minutes to set up. There is a premium option but you can run as many free tests as you like.

Memory Test
You see a web page for 5 seconds then you list the 5 things you remember. This is a great way for marketers to see if that call to action is really standing out.

Click Test
You are presented a web page and asked to click on the one thing that stands out the most, then are given a text box to enter what that thing is. You’d be surprised at how often a promotion looks like a banner ad to a visitor.

Five second tests help you identify the most important elements on a page easily, ingeniously and super duper fast.

Usertesting.com
Usertesting.com offers low cost usability testing that lets you watch and hear real people as they are using your website. This is the closest thing to an in person usability test that I’ve seen. For $29 bucks you get a video of the user clicking through your site with their toughts in audio as they browse your site and a written summary.  You can even choose the demographics of the users you want. Including age, gender, income, etc. 5 users only cost $126

These are in no way replacements to a true one on one user test but they are great additions to explore before conducting a more in-depth usability test or a professional conversion rate optimization specialist. Conversion rate optimization and Usability testing are both in-depth robust fields of study and these tools simply scratch the surface but they are a great way to get your feet wet, get some great information you can act on immediately and begin to break the curse of knowledge.

Tags: conversion rate marketing, conversion rate optimization

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 9:01 am and is filed under Marketing, conversion rate optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.