First impressions are everything. A user’s first few seconds of interaction with a design can shape their whole perception of a product or company. It’s important to know what users are thinking and how designers can deliver the best impression in the shortest amount of time. That’s where five second testings can come in handy!
What is Five Second Testing?
Five second testing is a user research method that helps designers gauge users’ first impression of their design as a whole. In a five second test, participants in the study are shown a mockup of a landing page or design on a screen for five seconds and then asked a one or a series of follow up questions about what they saw. Some example questions:
What stood out to you on the page you just saw?
What products or services were being provided?
Who was the company?
Does this brand appear trustworthy?
What does this product or service do?
This process is then repeated on at least five users to gauge how the design is performing. Because of its simplicity, this process can be automated with online software or staged manually with printouts. What you choose to test could be anything. The most common subject of testing is often the above-the-fold part of the landing page, but it could be a banner, an navigation menu, a complete UI, basically anything that can be shown on a screen for five seconds.
The goal of this method is to assess what users can recall and measure what made a lasting influence on them.
Why Use Five Second Testing?
According to studies, 55% of users spend less than 15 seconds on a website, so ensuring that you capture their attention in the first few seconds of them viewing a design is essential. The first few seconds can be the difference between a user browsing or leaving a site.
While it is most common to give users only five seconds, that number is not set in stone. In some cases, designers James Pannafino and Patrick McNeil recommend you give a user as much as 60 seconds to review a page. It all depends on what you’re testing. The main focus of this method of testing is immediate feedback. The internet is only getting faster and as a designer, you’re going to want to do whatever it takes to keep up. The results you gain from a five second test are both quantitative and qualitative, helping you to better optimize your design.
When to Use
Before a Product Release
The beauty of this testing method is it can be done before a single line of code is even written! When building a new website, product, or campaign, it is essential that you get early feedback about the overall user experience. These simple, inexpensive tests can be done quickly at the very beginning of the product developmental process. Getting a head start on testing out what the user wants can save time and money.
A/B Testing
Five second testing can also be useful during the A/B testing stage.
Successful A/B testing is always based on extensive research. Before you set up and start split testing, a proof check can be run with some quick five second tests. A/B testing takes time not only to engineer but to also wait for the data to be collected. Most small to mid-size businesses have to wait 2 – 3 weeks to receive significant results. But running a five second test can get designers immediate feedback on the different variations. This feedback allows developers to focus on variations that work for the user and remove versions that do not.
Redesign
During a website or product redesign process, you want to make sure your team is highlighting the key features users want to see on the site. The goal is to make them immediately recognizable and accessible to the user. Maybe you want to simplify a landing page or introduce a new feature into the site’s design. You can use five second testing to determine the user’s ability to clearly process and navigate the redesign. Similar to using this method before a launch, using it during redesign shows designers what is working and where the design can be improved.
Five second tests are a quick and effective method to measure the clarity of your design and how you can better understand the overall user experience.
Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash
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