Have you done any content testing yet? If you haven’t, you are in for a treat. It’s the easiest, simplest form of user research and yields surprisingly rich, illuminating insights that are like little windows into the mind of your audience. It can be done remotely, in large or small groups, and cheaply. Seriously, what more could you ask for?
You should be doing content testing if you want to learn:
Whether your content or brand strikes the right tone with your audience.
Do they like what they are reading? Is it compelling? How could it be better?
Is your message clear to readers?
Do they understand what you are offering them?
Do they understand how to do something you want them to be able to do? i.e. get somewhere, buy something, learn something, save something, upgrade something, share something - you get the picture.
What kinds of content can you test? Content testing can be done with any content that you produce, including but not limited to:
Blog posts
Navigation in your website or app
Calls to action on your website or app
UX copy (microcopy) in your website or app, including error text or success messages
Marketing copy or descriptive copy about your company & products
Social media feeds
Videos
Advertising campaign material
Email communication
Even your company name, tagline, and logo
I bet you’ve got at least some of those that you aren’t really sure if your audience is enjoying: Every brand has their own mix of content that sometimes seems to hit the mark or fall flat, and it can be hard to figure out why. The good news is that your audience is ready to tell you! Here are 6 methods for giving them the opportunity to do that.
Method 1: easiest interviews
Schedule short zoom calls with people in your target audience, and give them your content to read. Then, ask them open-ended questions such as:
What is this telling you?
How does this make you feel?
What might you do now that you have read this?
Pro tip: Ask for permission to record the interviews, so that you can refer back to them later. You may miss key takeaways if you’re busy taking notes while your subject talks to you!
Method 2: play your cards
Ask users to organize individual cards (either physical or virtual) into predefined categories that you’ve prepared beforehand. This is a fun and easy exercise for your testers, and extremely versatile for you. Here are some examples of how it can be used:
Test your navigation or content categories by handing out cards labelled with your content topics, and asking the user to group them into categories that either you’ve named yourself, or the user can make up.
Give users a set of cards that include different topics or information. Tell them to group them by how they want to find out about these things: e.g. via email, on your home page, in their social media, etc.
Show users your website, branding, logo or other content to read. Then, give them a set of cards that have different adjectives on them. Ask them to choose or group which words they associate with your brand, and which they do not.
Method 3: highlights & lowlights
Give users highlighters and let them color-code which parts of your copy are
Clear / unclear
positive / negative
like / dislike
boring / exciting
…or anything else you’d like them to tag for you. This can be done in person with highlighter markers, or virtually using any collaborative text-based software like Google Docs, Miro, or Mural. Just decide on a few colors before your session, and create a “color key” that users can refer to while they are working, so they will remember which color should signify what.
Method 4: fill in the blanks
Known as “Cloze” testing, this game is sometimes used to help test kids’ reading comprehension in schools. It works equally well for testing brand content and messaging. You compose a sentence, and ask users to fill in the missing words. (again, either on screen or in-person). Here are some examples:
“When I read this tagline, _________ comes to mind”
“When I read this, I knew that I could __________”
“After reading this, I know that this product does _________ and costs _________”
Be sure to compose your sentences so that there are lots of possibilities for what the blank word can be. A game that doesn’t let the players express themselves is no fun! (And it won’t get you good data either.)
Method 5: simplest surveys
Use the same interview questions listed above, but put them into a google form where people fill out a text field with their answer. And voilà - survey nirvana.
Method 6: virtual focus groups
Individual interviews usually yield good results, but if you want to incorporate a fun, social element to your testing, or to spark interesting discussions in a group setting, consider holding a virtual focus group. You can invite up to 20 people and do the same exercises outlined above, or invite them to play the games in groups of 4 using “breakaway rooms”, then getting everyone back together at the end for discussion.
Pro tip: Be sure to allow enough time to give every participant your attention and some time in the spotlight to speak their mind. This is necessary so that your group won’t be overly influenced by the more outspoken participants. You will need to identify which participant hasn’t had any input yet, and gently but directly ask them to share their thoughts. It takes some practice to be able to cajole every member of your focus group to participate equally, but it is very doable.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to get creative! Content testing is both eye opening and satisfying to do: It will provide you with lots of bang for your buck, and in contrast to other research methods, it’s easy for beginners to master. You’ll learn so much about product, branding, and messaging without a lot of time or effort invested. For the more advanced, combine your content testing with live a/b testing and watch as you supercharge the effectiveness of your copy with the one-two-punch of both quantitative and qualitative data.