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News Release from: Human Factors International | Subject: PETscan
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 31 October 2007
Human Factors unveils PETscan
Web 2.0, with social networking, peer-to-peer work-sharing tools and user-generated content capabilities, has transformed the web from an information channel to an interactive community.
Responding to the challenge of designing useful, relevant and compelling online user experiences, Human Factors International (HFI) has developed the usability PETscan methodology, which it is launching in the UK to mark World Usability Day on 8 November HFI's usability PETscan is an advanced, scientific approach for evaluating the persuasion, emotion and trust a website engenders and how these elements engage users, influence online decision-making and increase conversion rates
This article was originally published on Marketingservicestalk on 6 Mar 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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Mona Patel, Executive Director at HFI, explained: "This proven method provides an insight into the decision-making process and how emotions drive action.
"By understanding what motivates users to keep clicking through a transaction and which design elements hit exactly the right note, we can improve users' online experiences and measure the value delivered to them".
Although PETscan's tools for site evaluation are familiar, the perspective of their application is novel: rather than relying simply on traditional demographic personae, for example, the method focuses on users' motivations and mindsets, using eye tracking technology and monitoring of body language and emotional responses to assess the triggers and blocks to conversion.
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Nigel Grace, Managing Director of Human Factors Europe, which heads up HFI's European usability operations, said: "With the new collaborative capabilities, people now expect positive, emotional online experiences.
"Whatever a site's conversion goal - buying, finding information, upgrading, donating, subscribing - it has more to do with people than products".
Until now, building a successful interface has focused on understanding users' needs, designing for ease of use and validating through usability testing.
In the web 2.0 world, with its rich internet application capabilities and shared user experiences, website design must not only provide a rational basis for conversion, but also elicit emotion to trigger the decision-making process.
Whereas traditional usability testing deals almost exclusively with the rational and behavioural aspects of user experience, such as whether people can buy a product online or navigate the site easily, PETscan evaluates the full scope of the user experience.
By analysing the more abstract drivers for decision-making based on variables that people are not consciously aware of, it provides a concrete means of understanding what motivates people to do something as opposed to simply being able to do something.
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