7/26/06
Usability - Real!
Many of you know I am a big fan of Tema’s work. There is a lot here that we can all use. I encourage you to evangelize it to your clients and acquaintances.
The one I see this month that I think is so important is the issue of visually impaired web users. It is one of my pet passions. Helping those much less fortunate than most of us. For example my dear mother who is now 95 really appreciates it when I get her things to read that are of more readable fonts than she often gets in her magazines. Reading is one of her joys but she finds it difficult to read some of the snazzier texts and ads. The least we can all do is to enable the actual transaction copy on websites that we are involved in to conform to these standards. One organization who is trying to do something about this is the UK’s RNIB – I encourage you to see how they are developing standards to make partial and non-sighted people able to use the richness of the web.
BTW Tema made an error and so here is her apology:
Home page appeal vs. ease of use
We've got a red face when looking back on what we sent out a few minutes ago about there being more to success than a pretty face. In fact, there was a correlation of .93 between the appeal of the home page and the ranking of overall experience on the site. This still puts appeal behind ease of use, which ranked a .97 correlation with overall experience, but ahead of just the process of obtaining a quote, at .82. (The process is just part of what makes a site "easy to use" in consumers' minds.)
Cheers
Timothy
Timothy J O'Neil-Dunne
Managing Partner - T2Impact Ltd
Global Travel eBusiness
Tel (US) +1 425 836 4770
Mobile (US) +1 425 785 4457
Mobile (International) +44 7770 33 81 75
Fax +1 815 377 1583
www.t2impact.com
From: Tema Frank [mailto:ntu@webmysteryshoppers.com]
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2006 12:56 PM
To: Timothy
Subject: News to Use: Auto Insurance Online, Accessibility, & more - July 2006
If you are having difficulty viewing this email properly, please click here:
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| Auto Insurance Quotes Online We've just released the results of our study of Auto Insurance Quotes online. (You can download a copy of the Executive Summary from the research page of www.webmysteryshoppers.com.) It was an update of a similar study we did in 2004. A few highlights: · Competition for auto insurance quotes online is intensifying, driving up average website quality and driving down pricing. · There's more to success than a pretty face. The best sites by far were Esurance and Progressive. While neither rated highly on the appeal of their home pages, they scored well on the process of obtaining a quote, and presented fewer errors than on the other sites. The correlation between appeal of the home page with the rating of the overall experience on the site was only .20, whereas the correlation between the process of getting a quote with the overall experience was .82. · Ease of use is key. Even more powerful, there was a .97 correlation between the overall experience and the questions "How easy was it to find what you were looking for on this site?" and "In general, did you get what you expected when you clicked on things in this website?" · If they like what they see, consumers want to be able to buy online. Not all of them, to be sure, especially since there are still concerns about security and privacy, but overall 45% said that if they were to buy a policy from the company whose site they tested, they would want to do so online. (The rate was much higher at sites with good usability, such as Progressive.) · More testing needed. Nearly half (45%) the shoppers got error messages. At some sites the rate was as high as 65%! Accessibility Tips We've all read about the importance of using alt tags (a way to label pictures) so that visually impaired web users know what's there, but I recently had my eyes opened much further when doing usability testing with users of JAWS, a major screen-reader program for the blind. Here are a few simple tips to take you beyond that very important alt-tag bit: · When an article continues on another page, don't simply label it "more" or "click here". The screen-reader picks out links so they can scan the page by hearing the links read out loud. So a link such as "Web accessibility tips - more" will be much more helpful. · Use html header tags for headers instead of simply a bolder or larger font. The screen-reading program also helps users scan pages by reading out headers. · Have a link to text-only version available near the top of the page. This saves them having to wade through tons of "graphic" links that are irrelevant to them. · Flash does not work well with screen-reading programs. If you must use flash, summarize its contents in text format. · Think left to right, top to bottom. That's the order in which most screen readers tell users what is on the page. So ideally you want to put your most important information in the top left. (For English and most European language-speakers, that holds true too. We are accustomed to reading in that order.) | | 
| Scotiabank Customer Service We got a letter from Rosemin Dhanji at Scotiabank enclosing a cheque we had written out to one of our Web Mystery Shoppers. Apparently he had left the cheque, un-endorsed and undeposited, near an ABM machine. They saw who had issued the cheque and so they returned it to us so we could resend it to him. Well done, Scotiabank and Rosemin! | | 
| When should I get my website ready for winter? If you haven't started, get on it now! First, there's a huge business in "back to school" sales, which have already started at sites like Apple and Best Buy. And not long afterwards people start shopping for Christmas. Yes, I know that seems far away while we swelter in the summer heat, but many retailers now start encouraging early holiday sales almost as soon as the Back to School rush is over. A survey done last fall by Hostway reported findings consistent with what we hear from Web Mystery Shoppers: consumers' major peeves about retail websites are pop-up advertising (34.9%), the requirement to register or log-in (16.7%), having to install software(15.7%) and slow-loading pages (9.1%). Most important: "More than 70% of consumers in the survey reported that they were unlikely to purchase from, or even return to, a website after encountering these annoyances. Since only 25% would bother to report they were upset by the tactics, online retailers are often unaware of the fact that they are losing business." (quote from eMarketer, Jan 4/06) | | 
| Shopper Comments on Auto Insurance Sites Here are comments made by some of the Web Mystery Shoppers(TM) who tried to get auto insurance quotes online: "I felt like I was going in circles they asked for so much information over and over again. Also, no way to back up without losing information is very frustrating." "[It keeps] asking me to fix error because no spousal info provided, but my spouse doesn't have a car (which is what it asks!)" "Being able to actually purchase insurance without contacting the agent would make me more likely to complete the purchase immediately." "Extend [the] deadline on quote. Did this at 9:30 p.m. and was given a quote expiration of midnight tonight." For more information, download the FREE executive summary of our Auto Insurance Quotes Online Study from the research page of www.webmysteryshoppers.com. | | 
| Going in Circles You may have heard the ethnic joke, "How do you drive a [ethnic group of your choosing] crazy? Put him in a round room and tell him to pee in the corner." Well, I thought of that joke again this week as I tried to get some information from a government website. I'd found the page I needed, but the data was out of date. There was no phone number, so I filled in the online form to ask when the new data would be posted. First, I got a confirmation e-mail. Next day I got an e-mail saying they couldn't figure out which page I was talking about. So I e-mailed them the exact URL. Another confirmation note. And now, a note saying I should contact the department involved, and directing me back to the exact same form and place I'd started! Augghh.... Tema | |
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1 comment:
Such a well written post.. Thnkx for sharing this post!
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