Whether I’m recruiting usability test participants or planning customer research, one of my go-to survey tools is Google Forms. I often find myself turning to online survey tools for things like participant screeners for usability testing or user interviews, and I also use it to perform market research and customer surveys. Plus, Google Forms is free, which matters a lot when your client has a small budget or doesn’t need the full capabilities of a paid survey tool. 

Though there are a lot of freemium and free survey tools out there, Google Forms offers a handful of valuable features, and I know that the service is reliable - it’s not a start-up that is going to be shuttered or sold to someone else a month from now. At the risk of sounding too much like an informercial, here’s a list of the many reasons why I like using Google Forms to conduct online surveys. 

Advantages to Using Google Forms for Surveys

• First and foremost, you’re able to build robust surveys with conditional logic. Really, as much logic as you need. Though the editor portion of the form tool can get unwieldy, you’re able to make a friendlier survey experience for your audience with low effort and at no cost. 

• You can collect a lot of survey responses. At the time of this writing, you can collect 400,000 responses if you import to a spreadsheet, and unlimited responses if you only use the tool’s built-in reporting.

• Your data is portable. You can download the responses into a Google Spreadsheet or a CSV file so you can import and analyze the results in whatever stats tool you’re comfortable with. Also, you can easily save a copy of the raw survey data outside of the tool for posterity. 

• Lastly, Google Forms can be be customized with an image. Adding an image automatically changes the color scheme to match. So, the survey can match your brand if you need it to, which makes the survey feel more credible (and removes some of that “cheap” Google Form aesthetic).

With Google Forms, cost is never a barrier to reaching out to your users or your customers - you will always have a free, highly capable tool to help you collect information and gain insights from your audience. 

Too often, website content grows old and outdated and loses its usefulness for visitors and the organization. No one pays much attention to this until it is time to overhaul the website. At that point, content becomes a huge obstacle and a seemingly insurmountable amount of work. The fix for this? Routine housekeeping to make sure the content has life-long value for site visitors and the organization. 

To create a process for routine content management, borrow a practice from Japanese lean manufacturing called 5S. 5S is a workplace organization methodology that consists of five Japanese words that loosely translate to sort, straighten, shine, standardize, and sustain. In manufacturing, applying this methodology reduces errors and improves quality - the same thing you need for your web content. Here’s how to 5S your web content. 

Sort  

The first practice is Sort. For this, you’ll want to identify and remove unnecessary content. This can be done by making a content inventory. You can learn all about making a content inventory here, but the basic idea is to make a spreadsheet that lists page titles and links to all of your content, from pages to pdfs and videos. Examine each piece of content and indicate if anything is redundant, outdated, or trivial (ROT). If it is, delete the content or fix it. 

In conjunction with the content inventory, take a look at your website’s analytics. Specifically, examine the least visited pages. What about these pages makes them so unpopular? Are they ROT, or is there a problem that is causing these pages to be overlooked? Fix the problems if the content is still valuable, or move these pages to the trash bin. 

Straighten

The second practice is Straighten, which is essentially the old aphorism “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Going back to the content inventory, now you’ll assess the organization of the content. Has it grown disorderly? Do the navigation or categories still make sense based on the content contained within them? Are callout features and promotions still relevant to your audience? Identify the top tasks for your website and conduct a usability test to check that everything is still functioning well for your users, or to test any proposed changes to your site’s navigation or workflow to make sure they'll solve the problem.  

Shine 

Next up is the Shine step. In manufacturing 5S, this is cleaning everything and eliminating dirt. For your website, do the following: 

• Run a link check to find broken URLs, 

• Use an accessibility tool like Wave to find WCAG 2.0 violations, and

• Look at every page for improper formatting, jargon, and outdated images. 

Standardize

To Standardize is to create and follow best practices for your site and maintain high standards. You might consider doing this by creating a style guide if you don’t already have one, and make sure everyone who is contributing to your website has the right tools to do their best work (such as image and video editing tools). Update documentation and training materials to make sure they are still useful, and make them easily accessible to your content contributors. Re-run trainings if you need to, or if you’ve never held training before, start now! 

Sustain 

This brings us to the final S, Sustain. This step is to “do without being told.” Repeat Sort, Straighten, Shine, and Standardize as part of a systematic process to continuously improve. Do it quarterly or monthly - make it habit! If you do, 5S will help you improve the user experience, quality, and relevance of your content - turning your website into a well-oiled machine. 

Unfortunately, in many organizations, a case must be made for adhering to web accessibility best practices, even though it is the right thing to do and is often legally mandated. If you’re in the situation where you have to ask for accessibility to be considered, you might think that Google Analytics will help you make your case. Perhaps there’s reporting that captures screen readers, for instance. However, there’s no screen reader report, and determining what users have disabilities is not clear cut (for good reason - think of privacy implications). 

The best way I’ve come up with to identify the potential for increased occurrence of disability among users is to focus on the Age demographic information in Google Analytics. Why age? Inelegantly put, the older one gets, the more likely one will experience vision, hearing, and mobility issues - in other words, reading glasses, hearing aids, and arthritis. All of this affects the user experience, and typically older users are a large and valuable website audience. 

Demographics > Age

The first step is to identify the size of your older population. This is as easy as going to the Audience section in Google Analytics and clicking on the Demographics tab. From here, you can access the built-in report for Age, and then view columns for percent of sessions, bounce rate, and session duration. You’ll be able to see how large your older audience is, and get an initial feel for whether they are spending more or less time with your website than the younger audience. If it is not similar to the experience of the younger age segments, this could be your first clue that there is a bad user experience for older populations. 

Using Age as a Secondary Dimension 

Next, you’ll want to view a few key content reports with Age selected as the secondary dimension. 

Exit Pages: Are there any abnormalities to the exits? Are older users behaving differently from other audiences?

Landing Pages: Check out the bounce rate and the average session duration.

• Do your older age segments have a higher bounce rate than your younger segments?

• Is your average session duration different for older age segments?

• Are older users taking longer on the page (struggling?) or are they abandoning the page faster than everyone else? 

All Pages/Content Drilldown: If you have pages with video, and they don't have accessible alternatives, sample a few of the pages against the Age dimension. Are older users leaving these pages or not spending enough time to watch the video? (If you have video plays tagged as Events in Google Analytics, you can apply the Age dimension to that for more accurate insights.) 

Investigate and Fix the Issues 

If you found that older users are behaving differently from the younger users, it’s time to investigate by analyzing pages on your website. Check that images and videos have appropriate accessible alternatives, and evaluate the page for colors and font sizes that don’t meet WCAG standards. Check the code. If you find WCAG violations, it might be causing older populations to experience trouble with your website. A great tool for quick accessibility checks is WebAIM’s WAVE Chrome extension. 

Though none of the information you’ll glean is definitive, the knowledge will help you better serve people with disabilities, or make a case within your organization for the importance of web accessibility. 

This morning I was reading a post on the Travel 2.0 Blog that hit home. Troy Thompson wrote:

“Recently, I was asked to critique changes to an advertising campaign from a well-known tourism destination. While the creative was fine…amazingly not touting anything and everything…the call to action seemed, cluttered.

Perhaps that was because it featured not only the traditional website address and phone number, but also icons for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, a blog (disguised as an RSS icon that few will understand) plus a QR code.”

Seven calls to action in one print piece! Thompson points out that watering down a strong call to action with six “extras” doesn’t provide more choice, it muddies the water for the user and scrambles your metrics.

This lesson isn’t just for print. On websites, there’s a tendency to offer everything to everyone at all times. Take the typical higher education website, for example. There’s usually semi-permanent placement of calls to action for applying, visiting campus and requesting information. There may also be callouts to promote social networks. In some sections (or everywhere), the school wants you to “give now.” The alumni section wants you to update your info or join an online community. And let’s not forget the ubiquitous share buttons, begging you to Like, Tweet or +1 every page you visit.

What action do you want your visitors to take? You can make a case for everything, but like the Travel 2.0 post said, seven calls to action is probably too many. So how do manage your calls to action?

How to Create Focused Calls to Action

It’s simple: let the context and content of the page guide you. Here are three ways to get started.

#1: Target the context for your call to action

In our higher education example, apply, visit and request information callouts should be seen only in prospect sections. Admission tools shouldn’t bubble over into the alumni or current student-focused content. Likewise, you don’t want a prospective student to be asked to donate to your capital campaign. It’s easy to design permanent calls to action that cascade across every single page of your website, but if your calls to action aren’t targeted, they are visual clutter.

#2: Make the connection between information and action

The second trick to focusing your calls to action is to put them close to the body of your content to indicate a relationship between the copy and the action. If a user is on a page describing first-year housing options, a contextual link to schedule a campus visit or view a virtual tour is more in line with what the he or she might want to do next, while also fulfilling your own conversion goals. A “Visit Campus” button designed into the header of your website won’t have the same contextual relevance as a callout nestled in the copy.

#3 Think “Mobile First”

Finally, think about your mobile site. If you had a limited screen size, what calls to action would you devote space to? Which ones would you cut?

Ready to tackle your calls to action? It’ll be worth it for your visitors—and your conversions.

Originally published as Context and Content Are King: 3 Ways to Focus Your Calls to Action over on the Elliance blog. 

The following scenario happens to me on repeat:

When starting a project, I make a quick sketch, see a “perfect” example, or jot down some idea that I think is just the tops.

I misplace it.

Then I become convinced that it was the key to my genius, and I cannot move forward solidly without it.

Then I find it, and it is complete crap. I’m finally free to move forward toward something smarter.

Does this happen to you?

Obviously a lot of good thinking happens between that first moment of conceptualization and the process of planning a feasible, delightful idea. And not all first ideas are bad ideas. Sometimes they are just raw and require cooking.

But in a way, that bad first idea is good. It’s good because it exposes that there is a problem begging for a solution. It’s a note that there is something there to work with, something to improve.

First ideas can also be very, very dangerous. What happens when bad “first ideas” become idealized rather than rejected? Instead, repeated as mantras? What happens when your internal criticism fails you, or you don’t have someone to help you workshop your ideas? Are these the projects you aren’t proud of? 

There's a bagger at my local market who frequently packs my groceries. He's very organized.

Here's a breakdown of today's purchases to illuminate his orderliness:

3 Fettuccine Alfredo Lean Cuisines
3 Macaroni and Cheese Lean Cuisines
2 pints ice cream (don't judge)

Here's how he packed the items:

1 plastic bag: 3 Fettuccine Alfredo Lean Cuisines
1 plastic bag: 3 Macaroni and Cheese Lean Cuisines
1 plastic bag: 2 pints ice cream

Then he packed the three bags into a brown paper bag, and then the paper bag went into another plastic bag for a grand total of five bags for 8 items, but only one bag to carry.

Now, I suspect that the bagger in question has a compulsion or something else going on. But, that's beside the point. The lesson in this story is for information architects, and that lesson is twofold.

1: How you categorize or group items may not match how the user would group items. If I were packing my bags, I'd put it all in one or two plastic bags, jumbled together.

2. You could be going overboard, categorizing and consolidating for the sake of imposing order, rather than usefulness, resulting in an unnatural effect for the user. 5 bags! 8 items! Enough said!

Now, back to that ice cream...

Here's a true story that serves as a metaphor for why your website needs good navigation and information scent. 

This weekend I conducted a search for chaat masala. I had a Mark Bittman recipe variation for dal, and figured I could just get it at my local super-sized grocery store. This store is, in fact, the largest grocery store in southwest PA, and I had gotten garam masala at smaller stores before. I checked all the obvious places: International, spices, where they keep boxed dinners, to no avail. 

Since I live in an area with a significant Indian population (for Pittsburgh), I am rather close to two Indian groceries, and I knew they would carry my spice. 

Grocery K

I walk in, and it's dark. The store is crowded with products, and things are everywhere. To me, it seemed like the organizational principle of the place was "put the product wherever there is room."    

Grocery M

I walk in, and it's brightly lit. The store makes sense instantly. Dry staples like beans, dal and rice are along one wall. Across from the rice and beans, rows upon rows of spices, herbs, tamarind, sesame seeds... Another aisle has boxed dinners, another for frozens, prepared foods, and even mark-down section. Candy is in front of the register. 

Why I chose Grocery M

Grocery M is familiar. Sure, the other shoppers were speaking in another language, and my knowledge of what I was looking for was slim (spice blend?). But, it was organized. A glance at the store's shelves told me what was in each section, and I found the spices in seconds. Once I found the spices, it took a little while to find my specific spice, but after I briefly browsed the shelves, there it was. 

Organize your content like store M, not store K.  

• Make sure your store is clean and brightly lit. Can someone glance at your website and get the gist of its contents? Or is it cluttered with distractions?  

• Are your aisles organized? Your content organization and navigation structure should make sense and feel natural. 

• Can a new shopper transfer knowledge? I had keywords, nothing more. But based on my experiences at other stores, I had a general idea where to look. I had a mental model. 

• Did the customer convert? Ultimately, I found what I was looking for at store M. Store K? Honestly, I bailed. I knew there were other stores in town, and I didn't want to waste my time. Ask your users and check your stats: are users fleeing your content because they can't find what they are looking for, or did they successfully complete their task?