Know your users

User tests consist of monitoring, where we observe and listen to selected users while they perform specific tasks on the website.

User tests are used to evaluate a website and identify any challenges or areas for improvement. User testing is great for clarifying what users do and why they do it.

We use a statistical tool called Siteimprove to analyse user behaviour on our sites. Using Siteimprove, we can see how users behave and interact with our sites.

Here are some of the things we can see in Siteimprove:

• Visitor statistics: We can see the number of visitors, how many times our pages have been viewed, how long users spend on average on our pages and how many leave without taking an action. This gives us an idea of how popular our pages are and how engaged users are.

• Traffic sources: We can see where users come from, e.g. Google searches, social media or direct entry of our web address. This gives us insight into which other sites are driving traffic to our sites and which marketing methods work best.
• Behaviour: We can see how users navigate our pages, which links they click, where they scroll and where they spend the most time. It helps us understand how users interact with our sites and allows us to identify areas for improvement. For example, we can see if our buttons are placed correctly or if users are leaving the page instead of clicking through to the next page.

If you do not have access to Siteimprove, please email the Web team at SDU Communications atweb@sdu.dk. We can help you move forward. 

By conducting user interviews, you can get valuable feedback directly from your users. The feedback gives you a deeper insight into their needs, attitudes and behaviour and provides a basis for making informed decisions on how to improve your website.

User interviews can be individual interviews or focus groups.

User interviews can be useful at different stages of development and improvement:

• Before you start designing your pages: By talking to users, you can get a better understanding of what they want on your pages and how they prefer things to work. This helps to ensure that pages fulfil the needs and desires of users.
• When you’re designing your pages: You can show users different proposals and ask them for their opinion. This helps ensure that the final design is user-friendly and intuitive.
• After launching the pages: You can ask users about their experience of the pages to learn if anything can be improved. This can help you pinpoint any issues and make the pages better for everyone.

If you have a large target audience and want measurable and analysable data to inform your optimisations, surveys are a great way to get to know your users.

Surveys work best as part of a continuous feedback process where you regularly collect and analyse user feedback, identifytrends and monitor changes over time. 

The method also works well as a follow-up to evaluate whether a particular change or optimisation was successful and has improved the user experience

Workshops promote collaboration, involvement, creativity and accelerate decision-making. 

Workshops can be used for a number of purposes, including:

• Idea generation and concept development: Use workshops to bring together web editors, web teams, professionals and representatives from the user community to generate new ideas and develop concepts for the pages. For instance, how do we make it easier to navigate our pages?
• Identification of problems and solutions: Organise workshops to identify and understand issues with your pages and find solutions through discussion and collaboration. For instance, what challenges are we experiencing on our pages and what can we do to fix them?
• User involvement and feedback: Involve users directly through workshops where they can provide feedback, observations and suggestions to gain a deeper understanding of their perspective and needs. For instance how do users experience our new feature and what suggestions do they have for improving usability?
• Prioritisation and decision-making: Use workshops to prioritise and make optimisation decisions by discussing and evaluating different options. For instance, which optimisations should be prioritised and why?

Workshops allow for an active and participatory approach where all participants can contribute their knowledge and perspectives. By bringing together different stakeholders, workshops can lead to better and more efficient solutions that meet the users’ needs and expectations.