If You Want to Truly Understand Something...

If you want to truly understand something, try to change it. ~Kurt Lewin

Changing the website is a big venture for our clients – and expectations on the outcome are always high. Eyes often turn to their voice of customer surveys to track the outcome. The initial results can be hard to take.

Consistently we notice a dip, often fairly significant, in how the users rate the website during and after the change. While no two changes are the same, the dip and subsequent recovery are very consistent phenomena. It does not happen every time, but all too often it does. Clients have usually established aggressive goals about the user experience because of the change and this dip disappoints them. They may question the change or worse question the ability of consumers to know what is good for them.

Here’s the confusion. While the ratings of the site drop, when we ask how visitors who have been to the site prior view the change, the majority will say it has improved! Searching through the open end comments visitors provide in their survey feedback, we often see the same outcome. The number of positive comments about the change often trumps the number of negative. But still the ratings will drop.

People like change, just not the details of the change. It’s like asking someone if the new house they bought is better. Of course it is – but they may also complain endlessly about all the issues associated with moving in, and what’s missing, and how hard this or that is to find. Same for your site visitors. While their objective mind may acknowledge that your site change likely offers improved benefits long term, their immediate experience is frustrating due to navigation issues, the unavoidable bugs, or the unexpected consequences the best of plans may have overlooked.

Designers should focus on beating the recovery curve – bouncing back to higher levels of experience as quickly as they can. Browsing the spike in buzz about the change offers some ideas for immediate fixes to try and beat this curve. Some simple insight on display issues or functional problems can reveal themselves within the comments. Making management aware of the potential for an early dip and focusing on beating the curve will focus teams on the right issues and keep internal teams positive.

Lane Cochrane, VP Professional Services