Let's admit it- first impressions matter a lot.
The impression that a product leaves in the first 5 seconds greatly affects conversions and user retention. It holds for digital products as well- be it an app or a website, the first few seconds of the user experience are what makes or breaks the visitors’ impression about the product and business.
As digital products have a short amount of time to capture the attention , it is crucial that the user gets hooked in the first few seconds and stays hooked for a long time. But how to know if the first impression is good enough?
How can you be assured that users won’t leave your website in the first few seconds? Here’s where first impression testing comes into play. It helps navigating the users’ behaviour in the first few minutes of interacting with the product and helps tweak the product accordingly.
Here are the three effective methods to test the first impression on a product.
The 5-second test helps assess a landing page navigation flow in less than a minute. It lets users view the content and lets you judge whether it is relevant for the intended audience or not.
Research says 55% of viewers spend less than 15 seconds on a website. Thus, a landing page needs to keep the user engaged. In the first 5 seconds, viewers decide whether they like the design or if they’ll jump to another website. So, it is essential to engage users' minds within the first 5 seconds with innovative yet simple content. You can test that by asking your users for an opinion.
Do a simple survey: "would you like to view further or exit?" and see how many users exit from the landing page. Using the 5-second test, you can see whether a user saw something positive or unnecessary on the first landing page. It helps determine the best UX flow for the page and helps tweak it accordingly.
This method is an instant test of the user's product perception. It evaluates how easy it is to understand the product and decide whether to use it or not. It helps to specify and predict whether users will be able to comprehend the product or whether they will be confused and not sure what it is for.
Picking an adjective involves asking users to describe the product in 4-5 words or adjectives. For example, if the product is a social media app, it would be possible to ask users to describe the app in as many adjectives as they wish and scan for adjectives like "cool," "amazing," "fun," "simple," etc. This first impression testing method helps to comprehend whether users can understand the product or not and lets you know what needs to be improved in the product's usability to make it easy to use.
The First Click method is used to measure the usability of a website, app, or design by finding out how easy it is to complete a given task for a user. In a first click test, the participant should do an intended task by clicking on an interface. The position of the click is recorded, so it allows you to analyze the behavior of the users around each different scenario separately.
The results of this test allow the companies to evaluate the effectiveness of the linking structure of their designs, giving information about the users’ expectations, particularly for common interface elements such as menus, buttons, and form elements.
With the help of these 3 easy-to-use first impression testing methods, the digital product is engaging and appealing to the users in the first few seconds of their interaction with the product. It lets you know what can be done to improve the users’ flows and interactions and what you should do to improve the users’ first impression of the product.