How to Conduct Successful Digital Product Testing
The speed of change, diversity of users, and complexity of digital products make it difficult to predict what users want and to deliver a product that meets everyone's needs.
A way to solve this problem is using experimentation. It's a quick, cheap, and viable way to understand user needs and improve digital products. By running experiments, professionals can test different features, designs, and pricing options to see what works best for their users. The results are very helpful to understand the user’s behavior, make improvements to the product, increasing the chances of success.
Keep reading the article to understand how product testing can help you get better results.
How can digital product testing help me?
This kind of test is like a magic mirror that can tell you what users want. It can help you see what features they're interested in, what designs they prefer, and what pricing options they're willing to pay for. This information can be used to create a product that users love and that will be successful among competitors.
Product testing can help you in countless ways, but we'll highlight the four most common ones on the market.
Increasing sales and revenue
By ensuring that your product meets the users' needs, the process can lead to an increase in sales and revenue. When customers perceive that your product or service is valuable, they are more likely to buy it. This is because they believe that they will get a good return on their investment.
Improving brand reputation
A good user experience can help to improve a brand's reputation in many ways, including increase customer satisfaction, improving brand loyalty, positive word-of-mouth, and helping to create a sense of familiarity and trust with customers. Users are more likely to recommend a product to others if they have had a positive experience with it.
Identifying and fixing usability issues
This kind of testing can help you identify and fix usability issues, such as confusing navigation, unclear call to action, and typos. This can lead to a better user experience, leading to increased user satisfaction, engagement, and conversion rates.
Reducing development costs
It is important to test to make sure about the user's behaviors and needs before involving the development team. This is because it can help to ensure that the product is meeting the user's expectations. Besides is much cheaper to fix usability issues before the team has spent hours of work.
And how to put these tests into practice? If you don't know where to start, you need to understand that it is possible to use different methods to test your product, including:
A/B testing is a method of testing two different versions of a product against each other to see which one performs better. For example, you could test two different designs for your website's homepage or two different pricing options for your product.
- Multivariate testing:
Multivariate testing is a more advanced form of A/B testing that allows you to test multiple variables at the same time. For example, you could test the impact of different design elements, pricing options, and call to action on your website's conversion rate.
- User interviews:
User interviews are a great way to get feedback from real users about your product. You can ask users about their thoughts on the design, usability, and features of your product.
- Usability testing:
Usability testing is a more formal way to test the usability of your product. You will invite a group of users to come to your office and test your product. You will observe them as they use your product and ask them questions about their experience.
The best way to choose which method of experimentation is right for you will depend on your specific product and goals. However, it is essential to test your product in some way before you release it to the public. This will help you to identify and fix any usability issues and ensure that your product is meeting the needs of users.
How to conduct a test
Here are some general steps that you can follow to conduct digital product testing:
Define your goals: What do you want to achieve? Do you want to identify usability issues, improve the user experience, or increase sales?
Choose your methods: There are many different methods that you can use such as user interviews, usability testing, A/B testing, and multivariate testing.
Select your participants: You need to select participants who are representative of your target audience. This will help you to get accurate results from your testing.
Run your tests: Once you have selected your methods and participants, you can start running your tests.
Analyze your results: Once you have run your tests, you need to analyze the results to see what worked and what didn't.
Make changes to your product: Based on the results of your analysis, you can make changes to your product to improve the user experience and increase its chances of success.
The most awaited moment: measuring the results
What's the point of testing your product if you don't measure the results? That's like going to the gym and not tracking your progress. You might be working out hard, but you won't know if it's making a difference unless you measure your results.
The same is true for product testing. You can spend all the time in the world testing different features and designs, but if you don't measure the results, you won't know which ones are actually working.
Check out some very common metrics in digital product testing
- Conversion rate: This metric measures the percentage of users who take a desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
- Average time on page: This metric measures how long users spend on a page. It's a great indicator to understand if the page is catching the user's attention.
- Bounce rate: This metric measures the percentage of users who leave a page after viewing only one page. If this rate is too high, it may show that the page is not attractive, the audience that arrives on your site is not your target or even the page loading time may be too slow.
Once you have collected your metrics, it is important to analyze them to see what patterns emerge. This will help you to identify the factors that are most affecting the performance of your product.
Successful examples
There are many real-world examples of how experimentation has helped businesses to improve their products and increase their revenue. Netflix tests different features and recommendations on its website. This has helped Netflix to improve its user experience and increase its subscriber base. Amazon tests different product pages and pricing strategies. This strategy has helped Amazon to increase its sales and revenue. Also Google tests different search algorithms and user interfaces. This has helped Google to improve its search engine and increase its advertising revenue.
Recommended tools for quick experimentation
There are many tools that can be used for digital product testing, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Some of the most popular tools include:
Google Optimize
Google Optimize is a free tool that allows you to run A/B tests and multivariate tests on your website or app. It is easy to use and provides detailed insights into the results of your tests. Unfortunately, this tool will be discontinued at the end of September 2023
UserZoom
UserZoom is a tool that allows you to conduct user interviews and usability testing. It provides detailed insights into how users interact with your product or service, and it can help you identify usability issues.
Hotjar
Hotjar is a tool that allows you to track user behavior on your website or app. It provides heatmaps, scroll maps, and session recordings, which can help you identify usability issues and areas for improvement.
Codly
Codly is a no-code/low-code tool, you can create events without the need for a developer. Simply choose a template, customize and publish it. This allows you to create models, set goals, and gain a new understanding of your users. Codly also offers a variety of reports and visualizations to help you make sense of your data.
Experimentation is an essential part of the product development process. By testing your product early and often, you can identify and fix issues, improve the user experience, and increase your chances of success.
I encourage you to start today if you are not already conducting digital product testing. There are many tools and resources available to help you get started, and the benefits of testing are clear. With a little effort, you can use this method to improve your products and increase your retention and revenue.
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