E-commerce Tips & Tricks 4 min read
13 Sep 2020

14 Powerful Usability Tools You Can Use To Optimize Your Ecommerce Website’s User Experience

14 Powerful Usability Tools You Can Use To Optimize Your Ecommerce Website’s User Experience

As you run your store, you will find yourself needing to make changes from time to time. New listings, discounts, you name it. You also need to learn about the activity on your website and what’s behind it.

Here, technology is your best friend. But to get the most out of the tools you pick, you should couple them with a compatible theme. This will make things like running tests while giving a good customer experience easier.

Download Debutify – the highest converting free Shopify theme to work hand in hand with your usability tools as you optimize your Shopify store. To help you improve your website’s user experience, let’s go through some great usability tools for e-commerce:

1.Qualaroo

If you want to know certain qualities of your store’s visitors, this tool does the job. You can direct the right questions to those you want to learn about. It also helps you get the timing right. You can then react in real-time by making a solution available.

This can be in situations like quickly changing shipping addresses. You may also use the lessons for more long-term efforts like offering personalized experiences.

2.UsabilityHub

This tool will help you know the truth about your design. You can carry out remote tests to know how images fare compared to as many as 6 substitutes. Run short surveys with detailed questions to get in the shoppers’ minds.

Learn more about the effect of your first click. Use navigation tests to understand the path a shopper usually takes. Redesign your site to lay the most clicked points in a way that gets shoppers to complete tasks quickly. With all these answers, you can rearrange landing pages, rewrite phrases, and improve your branding.

For your page changes to be effective, you need to be working with the right theme. With Debutify’s plug-and-play setup and highly customizable features, you can build beautiful landing pages that get you more conversions.

Download Debutify today – it’s completely free!

3. UserReport

This one makes use of mainly two widgets. A survey one, and another one for feedback. Create an account. Paste the code piece into your website and watch the results. Use its additional functions like the Net Promoter Score to know how many users like you and where you can improve.

Combine this with Google Analytics. It helps you go from knowing what users are doing on the website, to knowing who they are. Additionally, what they want. You can also use the account you create to add your website and install a feedback forum.

Customize it with your own logo, text, and colors. An added bonus is the 60 available languages. With this, you can collect ideas and fix errors.

4.CheckMyColours

CheckMyColours

This one helps rate your color choices. You can use it to compare foreground and background colors to see how much of a difference there is. Think of it like this. If you have a black background with dark grey words, they may not be so visible.

You can then change them to white so that there is a clear difference. It will tell you how well any two colors go together. This is mainly to help those whose eyes don’t process colors very well. The test uses technology suggested by the World Wide Web consortium.

5.Google PageSpeed Insights

Just like the name suggests, this tool helps you measure the performance of your website. How fast different pages load. And how responsive different features are. You can use it to know your loading speeds on both desktop and mobile.

It will also tell you about the site’s accessibility and how high up it appears in search results. Afterward, you will receive tips on how to improve in these areas.

6.The UserIsDrunk.com

Started by Richard Littauer, it’s all about finding out what it’s like using your website from a particular angle. In this case, he will try out your site while drunk. You also get a test from a sober user’s viewpoint.

You can also try TheUserIsMyMom.com, where his mother tries out the site. This informs you of how someone of that type would find the site experience. The goal is for your site to be easy to use for each type of person.

7.Pingdom

Here, you get affordable uptime and performance monitoring that is reliable. All you have to do is enter a URL and get a summary. This is mainly the load time, page size, number of requests, and performance grade. It then goes into detail to show you all the areas where you are losing.

You will get a grade for each of these areas, with quick advice on what to change. It allows you to download the results and also share them on social networks.

8.Mouseflow

This one mainly tracks mouse movement, scrolls, forms, and clicks. Use it to find out common journeys and processes from page to page. It also allows you to filter sessions and focus on those where users are frustrated. On top of heatmaps and recordings, you can use funnels to see where you lose users. This helps you improve processes like signups and checkout.

You can also create custom interactive surveys to gather feedback from particular audiences. From WordPress to Shopify, Wix to PrestaShop, Mouseflow can integrate with at least 40 different platforms. You can also build your own and have full control over your data using their REST API.

9.Convertize

Convertize allows you to create different versions of your webpages and compare them through A/B testing. Once you have created the alternative page, you set a goal and the tool tells you which version delivers the most conversions. 

The tool allows you to modify your pages with a simple drag-and-drop editor and add new dynamic features (like responsive text or geolocation). You can even create notifications that give a customer key details (such as when a product is low in stock, what your returns policy is, and when they qualify for free shipping.)

By testing your content and adding dynamic features, you can enhance your eCommerce website's user experience.

10.Try My UI

Use this tool to test usability remotely. List down some tasks you want website visitors to perform. Pick a specific group based on demographics data. Watch and learn where users get stuck.

Receive videos and written replies from user actions. Go further by crowdsourcing your research. This is basically using the UXCrowd function to get answers from a much larger group. Here’s more about scaling your research.

11.Hotjar

This set of tools helps you improve your user experience. A key feature is its data collection plans based on your traffic. It works well for marketing, with Customer Satisfaction, Net Promoter Score, and Voice of Customer options.

12.Loop11

Loop11

Test site samples, live websites, and even those of competitors without adding code to the product. Set your tests to run for a single user or multiple users. You can also easily run these tests on different devices. Desktop, tablet, and mobile.

If your weaknesses are on the mobile end, you may need to change your website theme entirely. Make sure you pick one where all the changes made are smooth on every device.

13.Usabilla

One of the main pros of this tool is the ease of injecting feedback collection into your mobile app. It can also be used in email communication to create the right messages for your website. Create your own way of feedback collection with the REST and JavaScript APIs.

Usabilla also offers the option to get a personal price quote based on your particular needs. Use the “Request A Demo” feature to come up with a plan that works for you.

14.ClickHeat

This tool provides a visual heatmap of clicks on HTML pages. It helps you know the hot and cold zones on your site. The features included taking note of screen sizes and browsers to track CSS layouts.

You can also use the keyword definition of pages allowing you to group the same pages when JavaScript code loads. ClickHeat also allows you to manage resources like a memory being used in the mapping. Here’s more on handling optimization using ClickHeat.

Conclusion

Remember, some of these tools come with more flexible payment plans than others. Know all the website areas you want to address and pick the tools that are within your budget. Also, keep in mind any other plug-ins and add-ons you’re using. You want to select usability tools that can be easily combined with them. Also, these usability tools will only help you optimize your e-commerce store in these conditions:

Firstly, you need to have a clear picture of what it is you are trying to find out. How effective the look of the website is. The ease of the journey through it. This will help you pick the right tool with all the functions you need.

Secondly, you need to learn how to use these tools without heavily interrupting the shopper - especially for things like surveys. Don’t make gathering feedback over-bother the visitor. Third, you must keep a few changes close. Be ready to respond to what you’ve learned with better options.

Usability tools may not help much if combined with the wrong theme. You need one that makes it easy to get quality answers from them and apply changes. For a Shopify theme with powerful add-ons that simplify this process, try Debutify.

Ricky Hayes
Author

Ricky Hayes

Ricky Hayes is the CEO at Debutify. He is a passionate entrepreneur running multiple businesses, marketing agencies, and mentoring programs.

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