How usability testing will increase your sales

Do you like a Roleplay? I mean to step into the designer shoes of somebody else and to act, feel and look like this other person? If yes, you have all it needs for good usability testing.

Too bad people to often skip the time to test their webstore like if they are a user. People too often underestimate the benefits that usability testing provides. For example, they overestimate the work involved. That is a waist. Because if you are into some fun an online roleplay, or better usability testing, is what you should do! Especially if that also has a great very positive impact on your sales.

What is in usability testing for you?

You have invested a lot of time, thinking, and designing your new online hair and beauty store. You wrote compelling product descriptions and created your first blogpost. The ecommerce platform will handle the transaction flow. From order to payment and shipment. Let the hair sales begin!

But what if after some time, your level of sales disappoints? What if you see people finding your store on google. And they even add your “CranRaspberry High Ombre Straight Closure” to their cart! But they bounce away before finishing the payment? What goes wrong?

There are several factors you should consider for missed conversions. Think of not completed email sign ups or abandoned carts. But frustration or misunderstanding by the user is a serious reason. Shopify shares the following reasons people leave your store before buying, they are:

• Being forced to create an account
• Struggling with complicated checkout processes
• Faced with unexpected delivery costs
• Concerned over security

A usability test is a great way to reduce this user frustration about complicated sign up or checkout processes. If you manage to test away this frustration, you understand what is in usability testing for you.

How to set up usability testing for a hair and beauty store?

The advice from experts is simple, do not set up a usability test if you can avoid it.

If you must test, you will most likely because of the testing make extra changes in the design. This takes more time and will force you to test again! Ask yourself, will the new design solve the problem the initial test brought to the surface? So do not plan one big test at the end of the design process. Better to test all through the design and creation process. The result will be much better because you will find much more issues now. The graph below, from Steve Krug tells you why.

So better to test through the whole process. It will also keep you much more focused during the design process, because the roleplay will keep you on top! You design the webstore for your clients, right? They must feel at home and the transactional processes should be tailormade for them.

Do not do usability tests alone

It is difficult to change behavior, imagine stop eating too much chocolate. The day you decided to stop, you knew you made a significant and important decision. You know, you can do this! But at day three, somebody offers you a candy bar. She already opened the silver paper for you. You can not only see, but also smell the sweet flavor of the chocolate. We all know a small bite will not hurt anybody. And before you know on day four you are busy to reduce the backlog of missed cholate the last days! Let us try again to change behavior next week! You can do this!

The same principle goes with testing, you did your research, and you know what works and what would not. But you start to carve the best flow on your webstore in your mind and behavior. Time to call in critical people.

Except what others say about your baby!

When you have been working some time about the website, you will start to see the site as your baby. You are proud of yourself being able to create this piece of art. You know you will help so many ladies and girls not only finding the right hair and beauty products. They will also keep on buying from you.

If you want your site to work, you now know you must test. Test if what you have been implementing is also working for others. Invite others to share their opinion and listen to their feedback. I warn you; it can be very painful to hear what others think about your work. Especially if your innovative idea behind the transactional process, is complete broken into pieces. You might hear:

• The colors are not good; while you used a color wheel to find the right contrasting colors
• The menu structure is a mess; while you analyzed Amazon for hours to learn the best structure
• The filter for the products is not working, while you have been testing this time after time

Take the pain and get better sales!

They are going to hurt your baby, but only for the better. Every remark, regardless how small and how unjustified will help you to create a better webstore. Listen and only share your feedback to understand the other better. Try not to defend your own design decision.

Enjoy this usability testing and learn how to behave like a user when you are building the webstore. The lessons will help you to create a better converting website, so more sales!

And when you cannot find people to test your site, you can always ask me to help!