4 user testing strategies to boost your mobile design

On the back of a smartphone boom, mobile user experience has become a key concern for web designers that want to do well. If you’re looking to boost your conversions, it’s time to look towards your mobile consumers for a shot at success.

Stick with us as we jump into the future of mobile web design and divulge the user testing tips that will ensure site success in 2023.

A push for mobile design

It’s no secret that mobile marketing is on the move. After the pandemic saw both consumers and companies move online, nearly 60% of all online traffic is now attributed to a mobile device.

(Image Source: Oberlo)

With a surge of mobile users, comes a surge of new UX demands. From hyper-personalisation to interactive and haptic design, mobile consumers expect a seamless, fast-loading experience from the web pages and applications they interact with.

In fact, a whopping 90% of mobile users stopped using an app in 2020, simply due to poor performance. 

UX design trends are continuously evolving, and smartphone-centred accessibility is at the top of the list. The key to keeping engagement rates high is to constantly test your mobile strategy and measure its user success.

From A/B testing to qualitative studies, there are many ways to boost your user testing tactics. Let’s have a closer look at how to optimise your user testing for a mobile experience.

What is user testing?

User testing is essential in a web-design strategy. Aiding businesses in gauging how users feel about their experience with a site/application, user testing can help designers pick out and identify what they are doing well, and what needs to change.  

As consumer trends continue to evolve, so do their needs. Engaging in a regular testing process is a great way to ensure that your site doesn’t fall short of its intended audience. 

Highlighting potential areas for transformation at all stages of business growth is essential if you want to keep those conversions skyrocketing.

4 user testing tips for a stronger mobile strategy 

There are a number of ways you can improve your mobile UX. From optimising your navigation system to adding interactive features, the list is endless.

The question is, how can we uncover our best-performing features and detect design faults? This is where a strong user testing strategy comes into play. Here are four user testing must-haves in any successful mobile campaign.

A/B test your design. One of the best places to start your user testing journey is to test the design you have already created. When constructing a website or application, it’s important to make sure you’re making, multiple versions of the final product. 

Whether you make accessibility tweaks or simply change an image on your landing page, you’d be surprised at the effect these factors have on a user’s experience.

The key here is to create two versions of your site and release each one to just half of your target consumers. By tracking the engagement statistics on not only one, but two alternative designs, you’ll quickly spot the page that is raking in the most conversions.

(Image Source: Devopedia)

In a recent Devopedia survey, over 67% of marketers rated A/B testing as the most preferred CRO method. 

In a mobile-first era, A/B testing can also be used to pitch a traditional browser and mobile site design against each other. Being able to compare the engagement statistics from both versions of a company’s landing page can indicate where the largest source of traffic is coming from, and guide designers as they optimise future campaigns.

Track engagement using heatmaps. Another user testing strategy known to boost engagement potential is heatmaps. 

As defined by Search Engine Journal, “heatmaps measure user behaviour on a scale from red to blue, with the warmest colour indicating the highest level of engagement and the coolest indicating those areas with the lowest engagement levels.”

(Image Source: Crazy Egg)

As you can see above, using a heatmap is a great way to visualise your user data. During the testing period, it’s vital that you track what content is performing well and what areas of your UX design need some work.

For a mobile design, in particular, heatmaps can highlight what areas users are interacting with and how quickly they move away from certain areas of content. From scroll maps to click maps, designers can pick up on how much time a user spends interacting with a piece of text or image. 

Deepening on high and low engagement levels, you can quickly identify whether the content needs to be shortened for a mobile user’s attention span, or buttons need to be altered for smartphone-based accessibility.

Conduct a qualitative study. While passive user testing is a great way to track and highlight engagement patterns, marketers that want a more detailed assessment of their site performance may opt for a qualitative study.

A qualitative study requires users to complete a set of tasks in order to collect specific sets of site data. Mainly centring around usability and accessibility, qualitative studies are a great way to ensure that a site is optimised for a streamlined user experience.

(Image Source: Question Pro)

From focus groups to face-to-face interviews, qualitative studies aim to gather data from smaller, specific target groups, rather than large random samples of online data. If web designers want to boost the success of specific elements of their site, they can pour focus into testing particular functions, navigation flows and interactive experiences. 

Taking time to gather in-depth, focused feedback could prevent you from having to go back to the drawing board at a later date, as all aspects of site UX will have been rigorously tested by key members of your demographic.

Start a conversation with your users. One of the easiest ways to collect user feedback is to start a conversation with your consumers. 

When measuring the success of your mobile site, it’s important to be constantly engaging with your target demographic. Providing site users with the option to provide feedback in the form of surveys and interactive rating systems can fast-track your user testing strategy.

Hearing feedback from the user directly, especially if they are a mobile browser, can pinpoint specific site factors that require further work.

As we jump into the future of mobile marketing, the smartphone-centred design will be at the top of the list for many business leaders. Consistently testing your design, accessibility and content engagement is the key to staying on top in a competitive e-commerce environment.