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The goal of content design is to reduce confusion and improve clarity. Yet often it’s difficult to pinpoint a problem as user feedback tends to be not specific enough. But: we can use a few simple techniques to assess how users understand and perceive content. Let’s take a look. Part of Smart Interface Design Patterns by yours truly.
Content testing is a simple way to test the clarity and understanding of the content on a page — be it a paragraph of text, a user flow, a dashboard, or anything in between. Our goal is to understand how well users actually perceive the content that we present to them.
It’s not only about finding pain points and things that cause confusion or hinder users from finding the right answer on a page but also about if our content clearly and precisely articulates what we actually want to communicate.
A great way to test how well your design matches a user’s mental model is Banana Testing. We replace all key actions with the word “Banana,” then ask users to suggest what each action could prompt.
Not only does it tell you if key actions are understood immediately and if they are in the right place but also if your icons are helpful and if interactive elements such as links or buttons are perceived as such.
One reliable technique to assess content is content heatmapping. The way we would use it is by giving participants a task, then asking them to highlight things that are clear or confusing. We could define any other dimensions or style lenses as well: e.g., phrases that bring more confidence and less confidence.
Then we map all highlights into a heatmap to identify patterns and trends. You could run it with print-outs in person, but it could also happen in Figjam or in Miro remotely — as long as your tool of choice has a highlighter feature.
These little techniques above help you discover content issues, but they don’t tell you what is missing in the content and what doubts, concerns, and issues users have with it. For that, we need to uncover user needs in more detail.
Too often, users say that a page is “clear and well-organized,” but when you ask them specific questions, you notice that their understanding is vastly different from what you were trying to bring into spotlight.
Such insights rarely surface in unmoderated sessions — it’s much more effective to observe behavior and ask questions on the spot, be it in person or remote.
Before testing, we need to know what we want to learn. First, write up a plan with goals, customers, questions, script. Don’t tweak words alone — broader is better. In the session, avoid speaking aloud as it’s usually not how people consume content. Ask questions and wait silently.
After the task is completed, ask users to explain the product, flow, and concepts to you. But: don’t ask them what they like, prefer, feel, or think. And whenever possible, avoid the word “content” in testing as users often perceive it differently.
There are plenty of different tests that you could use:
When choosing the right way to test, consider the following guidelines:
In many tasks, there is rarely anything more impactful than the careful selection of words on a page. However, it’s not only the words alone that are being used but the voice and tone that you choose to communicate with customers.
Use the techniques above to test and measure how well people perceive content but also check how they perceive the end-to-end experience on the site.
Quite often, the right words used incorrectly on a key page can convey a wrong message or provide a suboptimal experience. Even though the rest of the product might perform remarkably well, if a user is blocked on a critical page, they will be gone before you even blink.
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