Have you ever wondered what users are doing when they visit your site? Are they accomplishing what they came to do? Are they happy with their experience upon leaving the site? Would they recommend your site to their friends or family?
Most usability research is based on observing what participants do when you give them a specific task or watching them do something as you are telling them to do what they would typically do on a site. One is oriented more for collecting specific data on the ease of use on particular tasks conducted on your site. The second is aimed at collecting “true” data on participants doing what they came to the site to do (natural data).
However, is this data truly natural? Will participants react in the same way as they would as if they just walked up to their computer and started surfing for an item or to browse on a site? Most likely not.
True intent is aimed at gathering that natural behavioral data. Here’s how it works:
- Users go to a website on their computer with a pretty clear idea of what they intend to do. They navigate to a site and, once there, they have a goal in mind.
- Users are invited to participate in a short survey as they arrive to the site’s homepage (or any target page you choose)…
- …but before they actually participate and fill out the survey, they are told to continue surfing and do what they came to do as they normally would on the site.
- They spend as little or as long as they wish on the site accomplishing their goal. Only when they are done, they can choose to start the questionnaire.
- During the survey they are asked a series of questions related to their experience, such as:
- What did you come to do?
- Can you tell us a bit about yourself? (basic demographic data)
- Did you accomplish your goal?
- Were you happy with your experience?
- Would you return to the site?
- How likely are you to recommend the site to others?
These are all important pieces of data that could not be otherwise captured in an observational study.
Now imagine conducting this study with hundreds or thousands of participants geographically spread, and in an ongoing basis (say a 1-year period). Your data will be well representative of your population and you will gain quantitative metrics and feedback on your site improving your business ratios.
True Intent studies can be conducted in short periods of time, over the course of a week or two, conducted quarterly and/or per design change, or on a yearly basis. They can be used to capture traffic on high volume days (such as a major holidays) and gather information on the differences in satisfaction according to the day the site is hit. They can be used to target specific areas of your site that may have high traffic volume and are critical to your business needs.
Imagine that you are a large bank and it is very important for you to understand how often customers come to your site to look at your mortgage rates, and once there, if they are able to find the information needed to make a sound decision on refinancing or applying for a new loan. You can intercept your actual customers that visit your Home Mortgage page and ask them to complete a short survey after their experience. You would gain key and critical information and metrics from customers that have visited that particular area of your site.
The key benefits of True Intent studies therefore are:
- Obtain valuable statistics about who your users are and what they want from your website
- Know if they leave the site having accomplished their goals
- Analyze whether their online experience is satisfactory or not
- Get the Net Promoter Score: Know if users would recommend your site to others
In conclusion, True Intent studies are another way to round out and complete the research you are already conducting. They will help you gain true insights to data that you could not otherwise capture in an artificial environment or with artificial task scenarios.
