“Houston, we have a problem.”
One of the most common mistakes I see with businesses is the failure to test their products, sites or launches in advance of the day the product goes live. Why in the world would you go through all that effort, pouring your heart and soul into your Big Idea without testing to make sure potential customers have a smooth experience?
The Eleventh Hour Syndrome
Neglecting testing can have disastrous results. You might have bugs on your site that hinders perfect viewing, your documents might not upload, download or open properly, your autoresponder emails might not work as you thought, or you might be missing some very important detail.
If you just let your event go off with a wing and a prayer, you’ll lose credibility when there’s a hitch. The consumer experience has to be a good one. When something goes wrong while you’re trying to make a sale or create that first impression, your audience loses faith.
A negative consumer experience is not good. Word gets around fast, and sometimes all it takes is one frustrated customer to say shouting they weren’t satisfied. Then you’ve blown everything. A second shot at a first impression is not an option.
Measure Twice, Cut Once
Nobody’s perfect. (Not even the Pen Men.) Before we release anything to the public, no matter how big or small, we spend time testing everything, sometimes even for weeks or months.
Is it tedious? Is it time consuming? You betcha. But you know what? When it all goes off with as few hitches as possible, you’d better believe it’s worth it.
Here are some tips to consider when test driving your next launch:
- Go through your purchase process as if you were a first-time visitor or customer. Fill out your forms, buy, send the confirmations to yourself, walk yourself through every step from beginning to end. Could the process be simplified? Is there anything unclear or confusing? If so, fix it. Then get an impartial friend to try the process as well.
- Get feedback from people you trust. Don’t ask mom, don’t ask dad, don’t ask your significant other. Choose people who have a good eye for detail and won’t try to spare your feelings. You need people who are going to tell you the truth. You’re under no obligation to make every change they might suggest, but view the criticism with an open mind and with open eyes for what seems reasonable.
- Ask your target audience what they want. You may not be able to please everyone, but you can gather enough information to pinpoint and accommodate consumers and potential customers. Your target audience is key. Figure out what they want, provide it and you’ll end up with a successful launch.
- Leave nothing to chance. Find out the parameters for the products you’ll be selling, whether it’s the size of the file or specific settings you need to have in a PDF or a video clip. This goes for any type of media delivery, including print. Ask the printer for the required specs. Do they prefer Quark or InDesign? Do they want .ai or .eps? Is a word.doc sufficient? Details, people, details.
- Make sure your equipment and programs are ready. Converting a word.doc to PDF has annoying quirks that you might not be aware of if you’ve never tried it before. Make sure you know how to export your files to the proper formats well in advance just in case you have to Google a solution or call your designer buddy to help you figure out a way around the glitch.
- For new websites and design launches, test your new look at browsershots.org before you go live. Internet Explorer (IE) in all its incarnations is the bane of every web designer’s existence. Your site might be perfect in Safari or Fire Fox, but it might be a disaster in Internet Explorer. If you don’t check to make sure, your site launch might be a wreck.
- Make sure you cover your ass. It couldn’t hurt to check with a lawyer to know how to word the proper disclaimers or notices. For example, when we came up with the Sticky Business Contest (Have you entered yet?), we had to deal with monstrous legalities and red tape. Ignorance is no excuse when it comes to the law. Don’t guess or think your contest isn’t big enough or your viral ebook isn’t important enough to require legal disclaimers.
Give yourself plenty of breathing room and don’t wait until the last minute to fix problems – and definitely don’t wait until you’ve gone live. Testing and re-testing is what makes you appear a professional and not some novice. Even if you are a novice, you certainly don’t have to look like one to the world.
Harry,
Great post. Even if you think you’ve done enough testing and gotten enough feedback, you probably haven’t. I smiled when I got to the “don’t ask Mom” part, because I recommend that all the time.
- Mom will drop anything to help out her baby.
- Usually Mom isn’t very familiar with what she’s looking at, making her the perfect non-savvy guinea pig, fresh to your project.
- As we all know, Mom is the one who will tell you when your fly’s open, even when you’re 43. So if you tell her to give it to you straight, most Moms will. With relish.
Lots of good points here. Legal is an excellent point, and one that folks often overlook. Thanks for the reminders!
Regards,
Kelly
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Harry, I’ve always loved the expression, “Measure twice, cut once.” It says it all in only four words.
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@Kelly: Mom could work for or against you. Some moms are very good at giving good critiques, but there are some who will say it’s good no matter what simply because her baby did it.
@WriterDad: Yeah, it is a good expression, I hear it all the time from my Virgo engineer roommate.
@ Harry – I opened your post this morning and straight away thought ‘oh s**t, he’s talking about me!’
I thought we’d tested everything, turns out you need to test again when the site goes live just in case settings have changed. So yours is a timely warning considering the title of my current post!
The comments are now working again and I promise faithfully to test everything thoroughly in future.
@ Kelly – my mum is in the ‘everything my daughter does is wonderful’ camp, unless I’m very very naughty of course!
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@Rachel: The Pen Men are everywhere, sort of like Santa but without the reindeer. Then again, James might have some reindeer lurking in his back yard.
Definitely test again before going live and keep in mind there might still be a few glitches, but at least you did your best to catch most of them.
@ Rachel – Ahh, you egotistical woman!
It’s all about ME, not you!
Great point!
As a writer, I always try to step away from my writing for a while before doing that final proofread. When I come back, I take a fresh look at the copy from the perspective of the client.
(Of course, an actual set of extra eyes helps too – if they’re available.)
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@ James – either that or I’m just paranoid! *Sometimes I feel like somebody’s watching me…*
@ Harry – are you accepting Christmas wish lists yet?
@Rachel: That depends, have you been naughty or nice this year?
@ Harry – I’ll have to leave that for you to decide…
I have a degrees in Computer Science (programming) and Mathematics. One of the things we had beat into us when it came to successfully launching a new product we created (computer program to do a task), was the notion of phases of your work. When we worked in teams, each team member was assigned a specific task.
One of the necessary phases was testing – and when we worked in teams, there were the “quality assurance” testers whose only job was to test test test and try to break the system.
You make a great point Harry. For the company I own, I am our first customer LOL.
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Such smart advice Harry – but we’ve all been there. You think you’re on the ball and you’ve made sure everything is working. But something is always sure to go wrong.
A few years ago, our city was badly flooded. At the time, I owned a fire and flood restoration company. And I thought I was great managing to grab myself a generator the size of a small island, on a Sunday and begin operation, “save the city”. It didn’t occur to me that I didn’t know how to work the said generator and the delivery person didn’t either. I was lucky I managed to find someone who did – but I might not have been.
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Superb advice, as usual. I cringe when I see people flying blind — especially when it comes to copy. Like, why would you spend thousands of dollars on a four-color mailer that’s going out to a bajillion people and not take the time to proofread it? Same concept, same waste of time and money, same potential damage to your reputation. Sigh.