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Identifying primary user goals is key to the success of your tests as well as your website. These goals can be used to construct scenarios and user personas that can be very helpful during the testing process.
Things to Consider
- Have you identified the primary user goals for your website? If so, is it possible to achieve them on the current website?
- Do your primary user goals relate in any way to primary business goals you may have?
- Have you created test scenarios that represent the primary user goals on the site?
- Have you formed any user personas? If so, are they based on statistical data, personal experience, or perhaps a mix of both?
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When people visit your site, what are they trying to accomplish.
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Knowing the answer to this question is vital because identifying primary user goals
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is key to the success of your tests as well as your website.
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The primary goals for users are hopefully part of your main features,
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navigation, content, all the above.
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Accomplishing these goals is the reason most users come to your site.
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So the steps to complete these goals should be easy to find and understand.
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For example, when users come to the Shirts 4 Mike website,
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we know most of them are trying to do one or more of the following.
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Figure out what new designs we have, sign up for our newsletter,
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and most importantly--purchase a t-shirt.
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Since the purchase is most important to our bottom line,
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it is especially important users locate this easily on our homepage.
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The users on your website are probably trying to do something similar.
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In a general sense, they want to read specific content. They want to make a purchase.
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They need information to help complete an action or they're just trying to make contact.
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Testing these goals against your site will tell you how successful your users generally are,
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but they need to be a bit more specific to be helpful during your test.
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Creating test scenarios based on the primary goals can enable you to test important task
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using specific criteria that better reflects a real life scenario.
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For example, let's consider the Smells Like Bakin' Cupcake site.
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Customer contact is important.
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So it will be interesting to see how users choose to communicate with us through the site.
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I can assume they all go about at the same way so asking them to find the contact page
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isn't all that difficult for them or insightful for us.
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However, if we presented a realistic scenario, we might get more relevant results
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such as you see a variety of products on our site
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and you're interested in getting a birthday party catered for a friend.
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What would you do to get more information?
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If I could figure out how users look for information that benefits them
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as well as grows our business, perhaps we can find ways to improve the content
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or add features that will increase convergence.
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So now that you know the primary goals users have on your site
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who exactly are these users?
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Testing your site can be done with almost anyone but to get the most relevant results
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selecting test users that resemble your usual customer is recommended.
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Creating a user persona is a way to make this happen.
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Website stats can give you insight into the demographics
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such as gender, age, income, and more.
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Users may also arrive at your site with lots of experience
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about your content or products, some with none at all.
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Putting all these variables together can help you envision your ideal user persona
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or the type of person the majority of your customers represent.
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If you could find test users that match your persona that's great but if not don't worry.
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Scenarios can give whatever test users you find a chance to participate.
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Even if they have no idea what your site is about.
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Asking men to test a site that sells women shoes
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or grandparents to test a site for kids may seem like an odd match.
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But given the right scenarios, they can work out just fine.
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So to sum up, who is using your site?
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Do you have data to help you form a picture of the ideal user persona?
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What are they trying to do on your site most of the time
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and how can you turn these goals into scenarios
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that allow any test user to properly test your site.
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With all this information, you can prepare a great set of test questions that are relevant
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to the most important features and content you have to offer.
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