A/B testing

Most of us are familiar with the concept of using A/B testing. A/B testing is also known as "split testing" or "bucket testing," A/B Testing is a method by which two design samples are presented to real life users in live circumstances. Each sample is tracked allowing for comparison of results. These results can make the business team can decide which option is better functionality for users.

For instance, one might typically test two different headlines on a landing page. One would then outperform the other, and you would know which is the top-performing page.

Why do we need A/B testing?

1. Budget-Friendly
2. Measure Minute Differences
3. Resolves Conflicts
4. Measures Actual Behavior

Before getting into Testing we need to make sure we accomplish few key points

1) Establish Testing Goals and Parameters

2) Determining the Sufficient Test Interval

3) Create 1-3 designs

4) Redesign based on testing results (After first round of results)

5) Evaluate the Redesigns in A/B Split Tests

In conclusion, A/B Testing is a valuable addition to other types of user research. It provides credible, real-world numbers and guidance to inform any design decision.

Usability testing through Heat Maps

To have a better understanding about users & their usage patterns online, we can do usability testing through “heat maps”. By using heat maps, we can produce visual displays of where end-users are actually clicking and which ones are the popular locations on your website (or a specific page).

The core idea of using a heat map is to analyze/test how a user is interacting with a web site. What links are they clicking on? What kind of page design may work well? What functionality placed at different zones can work better? We can get help from such heat maps to understand some missing factors in our application.

For example, if a link is not getting any or less clicks even though it’s a link, then there is a serious issue of “affordance“, which tells us that the design of the button is not intuitively implying its functionality and use.

There are tools like Heat map, Click map, Hover map which helps the Interaction designers/Business to decide the move things around in the websites and make a improvements for Information Architecture, optimize link and advert placements.

Resources for Heat Maps

www.clickdensity.com

www.clickheat.com

www.crazyegg.com

www.clicktale.com

Features of Heat Maps

The heat maps display red-hot zones where most users spend longer periods, and blue or cold areas where your users spend the least amount of time.

A very nice feature is the Form Analytics tool, which displays aggregate form field information. This information includes time of field completion, the number of entries and clicks as well as which form fields have the highest abandonments, or take the longest to complete, or have the most backtracks due to errors or confusion.

Sample of heat Map