Your website is one of the most valuable tools your association has for keeping current members informed and recruiting new ones. That’s why it’s important to make sure it’s regularly updated, easy to use, and representative of your association. That’s where user testing comes in.

User testing allows you to understand how visitors are interacting with your website. As a result, you can learn about the challenges people may face when using your website and fix them accordingly. Whether your website requires tiny tweaks or a major redesign, you’ll be implementing feedback from real users who can help you take your website to the next level.

Web agency Kanopi explains that the most successful websites are grounded in extensive research to offer a seamless user experience, and user testing is a great place to start. Let’s take a look at four user testing tips.

Test at Every Stage of the Process

If you’re creating a brand-new website, you might have the impulse to wait until it’s fully finished before you gather user feedback. However, it’s important to implement user testing as early as possible. After all, it’s much easier to make changes in the early stages than it is to go back and fix major issues once your site is fully developed.

The same goes for testing out new features on an already-established website. Learning what users like and dislike early on can save you time later when you’re ready to launch the changes.             

Also, ensuring a positive user experience early on in the website-building process will help improve your website’s search engine optimization. If your website is more enticing to users, then it’ll have a higher click-through rate, indicating to search engines that your website has value.

Once your website is up and running, keep testing it regularly. Gathering regular user feedback ensures that your website is properly serving its users. In addition to user testing, you can also offer online surveys, analyze customer support tickets, and use platforms like Google Analytics and Hotjar for insight into how to improve the user experience. Lastly, you can take testing into your own hands by implementing manual testing to identify issues that might not be caught by user experience tools or surveys. 

Create Clear Goals and Tasks for Each Test

As with any initiative your association tackles, you’ll want to have a clear plan. Create distinct goals before you administer user testing and figure out what you want to test and what kind of feedback you’re looking for.

For example, let’s say you’re setting up a blog for your website using WordPress. Your objective for user testing may be to find out whether users can successfully navigate your website’s blog to access the resources they need.

Based on this goal, you’ll want to streamline the user pathway that visitors will follow to access and browse your blog. The user pathway involves the steps visitors will take to complete their intended actions. In the case of setting up a blog, tasks may include finding the blog section of the website, using the search function, and sorting blog posts by topic.

Incorporate Open-Ended Questions

Including surveys on your website can be an effective way to gather visitor input, but it’s essential to ask the right questions. While close-ended questions will allow you to gain some insight from users, open-ended questions allow for the possibility of gaining richer information about your website.

For example, asking “What would you add to improve the blog section of this website?” will solicit better quality feedback than “Did you have a good experience with the blog section of this website?”

With open-ended questions, you can get into the minds of users and cater your website to their needs. These insights will allow you to make your website more engaging.

Get the Whole Team Involved

While your staff may be busy, involving as many people as possible in the user-testing process is key. Observing how users interact with your website firsthand will help everyone on your team better understand the people you’re trying to reach.

For example, if user testing reveals that members are more likely to sign up using a blue button than a red button, then this is also useful information for the marketing team. Maybe your association’s prospective members prefer blue and incorporating that color into marketing materials could be beneficial. Additionally, collaborating on data analysis will speed up the process and offer new perspectives on the data. 

User testing is a valuable process that will help make sure your website functions properly and offers an excellent user experience. Following these user testing tips will allow you to continuously improve your website, ultimately expanding your membership base and engaging current members in the process.