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Enhancing User Experience at Low Cost

In the current business climate, it is more important than ever before to give Internet users the best possible experience. It is also financially infeasible for companies to provide every possible online enhancement on their wish lists.

Key Questions

• Which site features do users really want?
• How can sites recruit an appropriate panel for user testing and feedback?
• How do demographics affect users' response to incentives?

Priorities for Site Enhancements Should Include Speed and Customizability

To make the best use of their budgets in the near term, most companies should avoid risky, glamorous Web enhancements such as rich media and multiplatform content delivery. Instead, they should focus on enhancing download speed and supporting user customization.

According to a recent online survey, a fast, customizable site offers the most compelling experience that content-focused Web ventures can provide. Of survey respondents who use content sites, when asked which alterations or offerings would encourage them to use a content site more often, 40 percent cited reduced site media (for faster loading pages), and 36 percent cited customizable layout and colors. While industry journalists and the vendor community have focused on higher-profile (and costlier) rich media and multiplatform offerings, only 20 percent of users cited a richer media experience and 15 percent chose content delivery to non-PC devices, such as wireless handsets, as elements that would make them visit a content-related site more often.

Retail Site Issues Can Be Addressed Without Adding Technology

Although retail sites have an expanded set of concerns, they can address retail-specific user experience issues with a minimum of technology. Of shoppers Jupiter surveyed, 59 percent indicated that more detailed product information was the most important driver of increased commerce site usage--barring "lower prices," which was not included as a survey option. The next most popular response was content suggestions, at 28 percent; closely followed by a reduction of site media to enable faster loading pages, at 26 percent. Companies can reach all these goals with a minimal application of technology. Detailed product descriptions are a powerful means of differentiation for retail sites and require little incremental work, particularly if a site's product catalog changes frequently (eliminating the need to retrofit existing content). And while collaborative filtering tools from vendors such as NetPerceptions can automate product recommendations, retailers can often achieve similar results by incorporating merchandising-specific business rules into their existing commerce systems, which can be performed by in-house staff. Even if resources for these enhancements are unavailable, online retailers can still benefit greatly from reducing page complexity.

Companies Should Survey Users Before Adding Enhancements

Online survey data provide a starting point for understanding a site's needs, but every site's users are different. Before beginning any site development, companies should survey their users. To achieve the best response, surveys should have fewer than 10 questions and each one of a company's departments with a stake in the site's success should contribute to the survey's creation. The minimum length of a survey is one "user cycle" (i.e., the time it takes for the majority of a site's users to visit the site). Sites with shorter user cycles, such as daily news sites, can survey users throughout the implementation of their enhancements

Companies Must Choose Appropriate Incentives for Survey Participants

Companies should increase the quality of survey samples by offering incentives. While a substantial 14 percent of respondents will complete user surveys without an incentive, that percentage is severely skewed in a number of ways and is not representative of a site's true audience. For example, only 10 percent of veteran users will fill out a survey with no incentive, compared with 19 percent of the least-tenured users. Income and age also skew a survey. Non-cash incentives are effective recruiting tools, but tend to appeal to certain demographic groups. For example, users who are 55 years old and over are more than twice as likely as 18-to-24-year-olds to complete a survey to receive loyalty points; the opposite is true of free merchandise, such as a T-shirt. If the cost-perincentive approaches $5, cash or a cash equivalent might be a better recruiting tool; across all gender, age, and income groups, more than 50 percent of users chose a $5 check as the factor most likely to lead them to complete a survey.

Best Practice: General Mills Employed User Surveys in Site Beta Test

When General Mills first launched its mycereal.com commerce site, it solicited feedback from its group of Beta testers constantly, particularly following transactions. Following a round of Beta testing and user surveys, General Mills took its mycereal.com campaign off-line to implement those suggestions. While taking a site off-line is a luxury most cannot afford, companies can learn from General Mills's example and implement proactive user surveying.