Usability analysis for Benecol.co.uk website
We conducted a usability analysis for our client Benecol’s UK market. The purpose of the analysis was to understand how visitors interact with Benecol’s website and gain better insights into the effectiveness of the user journey. The primary focus of the analysis was on the call-to-action (CTA) buttons leading to the e-commerce section. The goal was to determine whether visitors clicked these buttons, and if not, what actions they took instead on the site.
Tools used
The analysis was based on visitor data collected from Google Analytics. Additionally, the Hotjar tool was installed on the website to complement the data from Google Analytics.
Google Analytics provided essential insights into visitor trends, while Hotjar allowed us to track individual visitors’ journeys on the site. Using heatmaps and session recordings, we could observe what actions visitors were taking and identify any elements of the site that were being ignored.
Visitor segment comparison
For the analysis, two visitor segments were created. The first segment consisted of visitors who visited product pages and clicked on the e-commerce CTA button. The second segment included visitors who navigated to the product section or individual product pages but did not proceed to the e-commerce section.
The two visitor groups were compared to identify any differences or anomalies that could explain why these groups behaved differently. The comparison revealed that, overall, the characteristics of both visitor segments were quite similar.
Analyzing visitor behavior
In addition to comparing target groups, the goal of the analysis was to gather insights into the movements of different visitor groups across the site and evaluate the effectiveness of various pages in the user journey. First, we identified that one of Benecol’s most popular content types was article pages.
The number of visits to these expert-level article pages was significant. However, there were missed opportunities for guiding users to the next steps on these pages, such as the absence of call-to-action (CTA) buttons that could direct users to other relevant content. Usability data from Hotjar further showed that visitors often didn’t continue their journey beyond the article page, instead leaving after reading the content.
For visitors who clicked on CTA buttons leading to the e-commerce section, they naturally navigated to product pages via the homepage and product category pages. Within this group, the e-commerce CTA buttons were clearly the most clicked elements on the product pages. Based on this, we concluded that the button’s appearance and placement did not significantly impact the number of clicks.
Some users did not click on the CTA button to enter the e-commerce section but still navigated to the product section. However, only a small portion of these users ended up on individual product pages. Based on this, we concluded that users are not being effectively guided from the product section or other pages to individual product pages. We did not observe any issues with the functionality of the CTA button itself.
“Shop Now” button usability in site navigation
In addition to the CTA buttons on product pages, we also examined the functionality of the “Shop Now” button located in the site navigation, which directs users to various retailer e-commerce sites. This part of the analysis was based solely on data collected from Hotjar.
We focused on several different pages and the interactions with the navigation elements. We observed that elements in the navigation received almost equal attention and clicks, meaning the “Shop Now” button did not stand out enough to capture users’ attention more than other navigation elements.
Conclusions and next steps
The key finding from our analysis was that the article pages did not naturally guide visitors further along their journey on the site. Visitors also did not seamlessly move from the product section to individual product pages, nor did they continue to the e-commerce section. Additionally, we noticed that the “Shop Now” button in the navigation blended in with other elements and failed to grab visitors’ attention.
These conclusions were based on assumptions drawn from the analysis, and we wanted further confirmation before proceeding with actual development actions on the site. To do this, we conducted several A/B tests to validate and test these assumptions.
The first test focused on articles, given their high volume of visits. A call-to-action button was added to the article pages to direct visitors further. We created several versions of the button to identify which one performed best. Additionally, we designed A/B tests for the product section’s main page and the “Shop Now” button in the navigation.
Based on the analysis and the results from the A/B tests, the ongoing development of the site will be better focused on the right areas to improve the overall user experience.
