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Morae 201: The First Eight Seconds By Todd Follansbee
This first appeared in Techsmith's News you can use Morae Newsletter, March 31, 2008

I believe that task completion is an important measure of site effectiveness but when we want to really understand how a site is working on a persuasive level, Morae makes it possible to measure how appealing, exciting or threatening a site may be. In the last article I promised some new approaches to site evaluation.

Intentional or not, users often lie. Or more accurately, their words misrepresent their feelings. Our bodies and faces, however, reveal our feelings very effectively. While I will touch on some of the obvious indicators, I encourage you to learn the powerful skills of understanding body language. I recommend: " The Definitive Book of Body Language " by Allan and Barbara Pease. This book will help you greatly in life as well as user testing.

How do we use body language and what do we look for?

We want to understand how users feel and react to the home page or landing page. While any video tool can capture facial expressions and therefore body language indicators, Morae's rich functionality, including the picture in picture recording format, easily ties any indicator to the screen shot. You can also increase the size of the customer's face in relation to the screen shot for greater detail. Likewise, as the keystroke logging records any missteps, you can emphasize the impact of these software issues by replaying demonstrative facial frustration responses. Remote observers focusing on body language alone can also easily tag and mark points of interest for later review.

Ensure that you have set up the user test in the right environment appropriate to the site goals (e.g. home - for personal shopping behaviors or office/lab - for business related sites). Then, launch the test from a search site or via the ways we discussed in the last article .

Now encourage them to scroll around the page (amazing how rarely they do) for about 8 seconds.

When reviewing the video after the test, I study their body language in these first 8 seconds nearly frame by frame to measure the homepage impact.

• Do their pupils dilate significantly? This is a sign of interest or excitement.
• Do their eyebrows rise or lower, an indication of whether the site is threatening?
• Do they smile, sneer, recoil, relax, "dive into the site"? All obvious measures of site appeal.
• What happens with blink rates? Closing eyes is a retreat indication.
• What is happening to the facial muscles in the seconds the site first appears?
• Do their hands rise to their face, a stronger indication but rare since hands are normally fixed on the keyboard?

These indicators must be taken in context of what is happening around you, meaning, pupils can dilate from a window shade closing or opening. Also, each individual indicator must be viewed in conjunction with the behavior of the entire face.

Reading these behaviors is a skill that comes with learning but I encourage you to practice it. You will find that this is key to really understanding the impact a site has on users. If, for example, pupils contract, eyebrows lower, mouth corners turn down or lips compress, the head moves back and eyes close more frequently and for longer moments, I would consider recommending a significant brand or home page redesign. Rarely would you find such a series of strong indicators, but you might. Remember that these indicators may take place within the first second or two of the site's appearance. If it occurred with only one participant, I would review how they scored on learning styles and behavioral tests (as discussed in the last article) and try to understand their behaviors better.

And after the first 8 seconds?

After the first 8 seconds, I reach in and minimize the screen to a blank desktop screen. I probe for understanding by asking questions like:

• If this site were a person, how would you describe their personality?
• Do you feel as though this site was designed for you?
• Do you feel welcome at this site?

Normally, usability engineers recoil at such vague "touchy feely" questions. However, my purpose in asking may not be what it appears. I want people to consider their feelings but I don't worry too much about their first response - I listen carefully to what they say after they give their initial answer. I rarely jump in with another quick question; I let silence work for me and allow them to fill it with whatever comes to mind. If you try this, you will find some great insights into site impact.

After we have gone thru the initial set of questions, depending upon how much time we spend on the answers, we either jump into these very important follow up questions or allow them to view the site for 8 – 10 more seconds. We ask:

• Can you tell me what business they are in? (How clear is their value proposition?)
• What message do you remember from the page? (What are their key messages and what is their brand impact?)
• Can you describe what the page looks like? (What is the users graphic sense, and learning style, what page elements of the site were memorable?)
• What does the site want you to do at this point? (What are the calls to action, is the page confusing or clear, what can we expect for behaviors?)
• What about the page compels you and how? (No explanation needed.)

I don't feel that I can give a worthwhile site assessment unless I understand these elements. Task completion gives important insights into how a user experiences a site, but it is also important to understand how effectively a site can persuade someone.

Beyond Traffic Analytics

Many conversion experts skip user testing and look only at traffic analytics to understand how a site is performing. Traffic testing is an important part of site conversion analysis. However, if you try these direct user test techniques, you will quickly see how much more you can actually learn from your test subjects. You will come to understand personas and user behaviors on a much deeper level, and approach user experience testing and site review with a new appreciation of the recording tools we have available.

Traffic metrics analysis alone rarely teaches us what we don't know. Meaning we can see where bounce rates are a problem, but not much about what is causing them. Advanced direct user testing teaches us the why's about user behavior as well. I believe it is the way of the future in user experience work and Morae makes it possible.

Next time you run a user test, look carefully at lighting and head positioning to ensure that the face and especially the pupils and eyes are clearly visible. Putting time and new skills into interpreting how people react in the first 8 seconds will help your site reviews improve dramatically.

As the test progresses beyond the first 8, use your newfound understanding of body language to better understand barriers to task completion as well. Frustration, confusion, anxiety, fear, and resentment will all be more obvious even as they tell you they "like the site". (As a bonus, the next time you are teaching, playing cards, negotiating or just sitting in a bar, you will be far better equipped to see what is actually going on in the other person's mind across the table.)

Eye path during these first 8 seconds can be another important indicator, and we have developed some surprising techniques to get some beneficial data using Morae which we will discuss in an upcoming article.

This article is free for reprint however you choose as long as you request permission, provide a link to this site and acknowledge ownership. If you need more information or wish to discuss any aspect of this policy or the article please feel free to email me. - Thanks, Todd

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