Designers and marketers are working hard every day to learn how users perceive – and use their designs. They do this to improve the design, attract a wider audience, and increase customer satisfaction. One of the tests frequently performed these days is click testing, a method that measures the usability of a design such as that of a website or an app.
In other words, click testing will tell you how easy it is for the user to complete a task and verify what they do when they come face-to-face with the design.
How is this important, you wonder?
According to the influential usability study by Bailey and Wolfson, users have an 87% chance of completing an action correctly if the first click they make is correct. This is opposed to 46% of them being able to complete the desired action when the first click is wrong.
The satisfaction of your users and the success of the website is dependent on their clicks. Think of it as a domino effect – if one click fails, the rest of the session is likely to tank as well.
Knowing this, if you are looking to optimize your website for the users, test a prototype, or boost the product development cycle, click testing is the right way to do it. Better yet, using the right software to streamline this process might just be what you need to turn your design into a big success.
In this article, you’ll learn more about click testing and what it can do for you.
Understanding click testing
Click tests are a fast way to validate and test an app, website, or webpage’s:
- Designs
- Wireframes
- Prototypes
If you’re thinking: ‘I can get all this in web analytics results’, you are very wrong. While web analytics is very important, it only tells you where the user clicked. In comparison, click testing tells you what the user wanted to achieve.
The information collected via click testing will let you investigate their behavior around different scenarios.
But, how do you collect this information in the first place?
The test will give participants a screenshot or static image of a page from your website or your application, and ask them questions such as: “Where would you click to see more about this product/ add it to the cart/ make a purchase, etc”.
When this data is collected, you’ll get the results in a visual form such as a clickmap, darkmap, or heatmap. It makes for the perfect way to test your apps or your website, and see what you can do to reduce the bounce rates.
This might sound like a lot of work, but with the right software, it is fully automated and you can get the results and analysis in a ready report.
Click testing with ease: what a click testing software can do for you
Click tests require a lot of work. You can start doodling them on a napkin in a bar, but turning your ideas into a test and implementing it on participants can take time. This is why you should consider investing in click testing software – a tool that will automate and streamline the entire process for you.
Userzoom’s testing capabilities will allow you to do the following – and more:
- Turn anything from scanned sketches to wireframes into a hi-fidelity mockup
- Automate the data collection process
- Designate specific areas as being ‘successful’ clicks for your users
This is the first UX insights system in the world, offering designers quality insights throughout the design and product development. According to them, ‘seeing is believing’. When they aggregate click data from your participants, they’ll visualize it in darkmaps and heatmaps, making it simple for you to visualize what part of your design attracts the user’s attention.
Visualization formats of click testing
Click tests can generate different useful results for you. For example, by designating an area as ‘success’ or a ‘non-success’, you can gather data we call ‘effectiveness ratios’.
In order to read the results from these tests, they’ll be presented to you in different formats including:
- Heatmaps
- Darkmaps
- Clickmaps
- Pies and charts
Let’s delve into these a bit deeper.
Heatmaps
Primarily used as a technique in biology, heatmaps have an intuitive and dense display, making them perfect for presenting high-throughput information.
A heatmap is a visual clue that tells you how users interact with your design. Think of it as an aggregated report that tells you which parts of the page attract the eye of the user. If they focus on a spot (keep the cursor on it), click on a spot, or interact somehow on your pages, you’ll know it by looking at the heatmap. In this case, the image will display more heat in those places.
Darkmaps
A darkmap is a different form of a heatmap, one that will darken the page and lighten the spots that users are clicking on. It’s a different method for helping you visualize the areas that attract your users’ attention.
Clickmaps
Clickmaps are another visualization that you can use to analyze the results of your testing participants. In clickmaps, you’ll see the clicks of individuals, not the group in general. If you are interested to learn who clicked where and when, a clickmap can be very useful for this.
Pies and charts
Lastly, if you decided which are your ‘success’ and ‘non-success’ areas, you can see the results in pies, graphs, or charts to measure the click effectiveness.
The benefits of performing click tests
Now that you know how this works, it’s time to learn how click testing software will help you make better design decisions. Below you’ll find some of the many benefits of properly conducting these tests.
- Evaluate your page’s navigation
The idea behind click testing is pretty straightforward – you ask participants to perform a task on a design you show them. By recording their action, you can determine the following:
- Which navigational elements on your page/app are most intuitive for your users i.e. buttons, language, or content they click on?
- Which navigational elements go unnoticed in your design?
- Which navigational elements are often misused or avoided by the participants?
- What part of the design is most often clicked on?
Based on this information, you can re-design the elements that are unnoticed, change the place of important buttons in your design, etc.
- Learn more about the user’s behavior
Click testing can give you many behavioral answers i.e. help you learn more about your users. Here is what you can determine:
- Where does the user expect to find the information they need on your pages?
- Where do they go when they want to navigate to a different page/ perform a different action?
- What do they do when they wish to access a specific part of your content?
- Where they go to click to progress to the next step of the journey i.e. add an item to the cart, proceed to the payment page, etc.
- Find the parts in your design that are unclear
How users click on your design can answer many comprehension questions, too. For example, you can ask the user the following:
- Do you understand what this icon means?
- What is clear on the website when you see it first?
- What is unclear?
- Learn about your users’ preferences
Click testing allows you to delve into details. You won’t just be asking people to perform actions – you’ll also be asking them why they did so, or giving them specific guidelines that will tell you more about their preferences. For example, you can give them guidelines like:
- Click on the top 5 elements on the page
- If you feel like something should change, click on it
- Click on the elements you don’t like/you like
- Evaluate their first impressions
It would be amazing if you could evaluate the impressions of users in the early stages of your design, or even when it is still a prototype, right? Well, click testing can help you do this. By performing such tests, you can uncover the preferences of users, but also their pain points, and make the necessary changes. This will save you a lot of money, lost leads, and trouble along the way.
- Improve findability and clarity
When you ask a user to click on something to perform a task, you will instantly understand if what you attempted in your design works. Users don’t always perceive the design as we create it. If you want it to serve its intended purpose, you need to learn how they see it and tweak it to take them on the right journey.
Have you tested your designs?
There’s no right or wrong time to perform click testing. With the right click testing software, you can do this at any point of the user journey, and any point of your designing process. Click testing is a way to understand the users better, improve their experience, as well as your overall design. This makes it a must for your products, so get started on it as soon as possible.
Author bio
Nadica Metuleva is a freelance writer who’s passionate about creating quality original content. She holds a Master’s degree in English teaching and a Bachelor’s degree in translation. With 8 years of experience in the freelance writing industry, Nadica has become proficient in creating content that captivates the audience, drives growth, and educates. You can find her on LinkedIn.