When users can’t find it, the problem isn’t theirs
- Segment
- Small business support and development
- Topic
- Digital experience and usability
- Method
- Navigation tests with eye tracking and in-depth interviews, with more than 60 participants
The starting point
A large organization that supports entrepreneurs ran a portal meant to be the main gateway for anyone looking for knowledge, training and guidance. It offered courses, studies, tools, guidance on starting or growing a business, registrations and service channels.
There was no shortage of content. The question was different: could people find what they needed?
A portal can be attractive and complete and still send users down several paths, use words they don’t understand or bury the very tool built to help them. To find out, you have to look at the portal through users’ eyes, not through the eyes of the people who built it.
- Courses
- Studies
- Tools
- Starting or growing a business
- Registrations
- Service channels
Real tasks, gaze recorded
More than 60 participants were given missions based on everyday situations: finding a course, finding information on starting a business, locating a study, registering, getting expert guidance and reaching the service channels.
As they browsed, eye tracking equipment recorded where each person looked, what caught their attention, what they missed and the path they took to find the information, or fail to.
After each test, in-depth interviews helped explain what had been observed. It wasn’t enough to know whether users succeeded; we needed to understand why.
- 1Find a course
- 2Find information on starting a business
- 3Locate a study
- 4Register
- 5Look for specialist guidance
- 6Access service channels
A feature nobody sees doesn’t exist
Adding a feature to the portal is one thing. Making sure people find it and understand it is another.
The study compared what the portal offered with what users actually noticed during the tasks. It also checked whether terms, filters, links and form fields led to the expected behavior.
Eye tracking made one comparison especially useful: how prominent each element was on the page versus how much attention it got from people trying to solve a problem. The most valuable space on a page isn’t always the biggest. It’s the one users see at the moment they need to make a decision.
Finding should be easier than searching
Search came up often among the paths participants chose, so it got special attention. The study looked at what happened after a search: whether the results were relevant, how many options came up, how people used suggestions and filters and how results changed depending on the words they typed.
That raised a language question: are the words the organization uses to label its products, services and channels the same ones people use to look for them? When they aren’t, search fails even when it works perfectly.
From isolated obstacle to pattern
The analysis also covered forms, registrations, menus, filters, login areas and the organization of content.
Taken one by one, the small obstacles looked like isolated cases. Taken together, they revealed patterns in the experience, and those patterns shaped the recommendations on search, content structure, language, forms, visual prominence and consistent navigation.
- Search
- Content organization
- Language
- Forms
- Prominence of elements
- Standardized navigation
What changed for the customer
The portal was redesigned based on the study. Recommendations grounded in observed behavior, not opinion, guided changes that made navigation simpler and more direct for people looking for help.
A good website doesn’t make users learn how it’s organized. If you have to explain where to click, it’s the website that needs to change.