If you’ve performed usability tests and tried to reconcile those results with your current site metrics, you’ve probably been left scratching your head. Usability respondents find something wrong on a particular page, yet the same “problem” isn’t evident in the site analytics.

This leaves you with a rather big question: How do you justify Web analytics and usability, and what role does each play in the conversion equation?

Measuring Oranges and Apples

Although both attempt to measure a site’s ability to convert, Web analytics and usability testing actually measure two entirely distinct aspects of a site.

Web analytics measure visitor intent and persuasive momentum, as well as the site’s ability to move visitors through a conversion scenario. Usability examines the site’s interface and process barriers that keep visitors from accomplishing a conversion task. Usability is:

Continue reading my column at CLickZ…

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Early in our company’s life, persona development was largely an intuitive process. We wanted to develop a process we could use to train clients and partners in the persona development process. To do so, we delved into literature and film to understand character development.

Last week, we discussed what we learned from David Freeman’s character diamonds and masks. This week, we study these, and their applications, in more depth. Here’s more from David Freeman.

Address a Buyer’s Mask When Selling to Him

BMW pushes its “Ultimate Driving Machine” to men who usually end up driving 40 mph in rush-hour traffic. Yet these men view themselves as mighty conquerors of a limitless asphalt horizon, roaring full throttle through life and leaving testosterone in their wake. BMW sells to these men’s masks.

The full picture is actually a little more complicated. This persona’s character diamond breaks out accordingly:

Continue reading my column at ClickZ…

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• How Many Personas Do You Need?
• Seven Thoughts to Arm Yourself With in 2006
• Making Personas Sparkle Like Diamonds, Part 1
• Persona Development and the Law of Averages

It’s not about your business category or whether your sale is or is not a considered purchase. It’s about your persuasive path!

I recently overheard a fellow talking about “the simplicity of the B2C sale.” He was comparing it to the complexity of the “considered purchase,” B2B sale. I had to chuckle, not at the thought one sale might be more complex than another, but at the thought that B2C sales, simply because they are B2C, are inherently less complicated. I wonder if that guy has ever bought a house or a car, booked a cruise, applied for a loan or tried to research dietary strategies that might remediate cancer.Your business category is not the issue. The complexity of your sale is not the issue. Whether your sale is impulse or a considered purchase is not the issue. Buying into these notions as determining factors when it comes to your ability to design persuasively is thinking that will lead you down the garden path.

Understanding and managing your sale as a persuasive process is the only relevant issue.

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