How To Redesign Your Website Without Upsetting The Apple Cart

Many marketers tweak their websites regularly, but are afraid of switching to a completely new design. While a more precise and cleaner design is valued, they often wonder about investing in a new design that may not sit well with existing customers. This leads to marketers questioning themselves on how to test different variations, colours on the old website against the new one? How can you be certain your new website will convert compared to your current one?

The day you decide to develop a new site, start on the testing process. Do not delay testing as it can offer you insight into your current website while creating a new one. Usability testing is the first step to gaining insight of a website. What is user testing? You test a product on real users and then evaluate its value? You gather 10 participants each and put them into different segments. Ask them to evaluate separate goals on your site. You can record their answers while they work on the task.

Understand your users and each segment and task they participate in, so there is no overlap. Keep in mind these users are not the sole representatives of your website. This is just data talking. In most cases, the data points to a real case scenario, but expect the worst case scenario where your users may give you inaccurate information.

If you are a small business, you can stick to 10 participants in each segment. If you are a bigger business with a flexible budget, take on a few more participants. However, do not overspend on evaluating significant sample sizes.

Avoid rookie mistakes when sampling your participants, Do not micromanage by leaning over their shoulders while they attend to their task. Test participants may try to complete the task quickly, this can lead to you getting inaccurate data. It is best the participants complete the task in their comfort zone so they don’t modify their behaviour to impress you.

A web design company will ask your participants the right questions. Identify the goals you want your participants to evaluate. These could be, free trial sign up, paid account sign up, creating an account, making a purchase, newsletter sign up or downloading a product.

Once you’ve gathered all this information and gained insight into what will work you can do away with what doesn’t, and now you are ready to create the new website. You will have a more thorough knowledge of what visitors expect, what causes irritation, what leads to increased bounce rate and what is needed for visitors to accomplish your goals.