Taking part of a usage test and eye tracking study conducted by Mårten was quite an experience. To witness a user struggle for several minutes with a problem we did not even know existed turned out to be equally painful and rewarding. I now feel that I know our users a thousand times better than before.
We at Rebtel have very little prior knowledge of usage testing. In the past we have worked some with AB testing with quite good results. However, the method of publishing two different solutions and measure the results takes a quite a long time and even though we may identify a winning candidate of a few different suggestions we still don’t know why one is better than the other.
We are now focusing on a grand make over of all our site and Mårten suggested conducting a study to be able to identify the strength and weaknesses with the current solution in order to help us decide what to change and what to keep. Discussions about design choices can go on forever, and it turned out that the eye tracking study that Mårten set up for us helped to paint a very crisp image of what needed to be done.
The test it self was very interesting. Imagine to sit in the room next to user after user struggling with the site. You can hear their comments and actually see how their eyes is wandering around over the screen in confusion because they misses some important piece of information. Efter the test was is completed you get the reslults in text but even in images. Clear cut, on paper what works and what does not. Suddenly you don’t need to discuss what you should or shouldn’t do, it is perfectly obvious what you need to fix.
We at Rebtel recommend all site owners to let Mårten do this kind of study. It is worth every penny. An advice though. When the test is being conducted, make sure you don’t just let Mårten do the test session by him self, make sure you’re there in the room. That experience is like nothing ells and beats any written report or live recording you can get.
/ Maja Lindström, Rebtel