Learning how users interact with a website allows businesses to better understand the motivations behind customer decision making.
By conducting surf-alongs, brands will be able to not only understand these decisions, but they can also gain insights into important customer details like trends and even pain points.
For example, customers may be running into an issue that’s lurking on a brand’s website. Surf-alongs will help uncover these issues, thus creating a smoother user experience.
In this post, we’ll cover the basics of surf-alongs and their many benefits. Keep reading!
What Are Surf-Alongs?
In market research, surf-alongs are a form of qualitative research where a researcher joins a user during an online or mobile browsing journey.
This type of research is primarily used by organizations to understand in-the-moment user behaviors and define what a user journey looks like from end-to-end. In doing this, organizations can learn the nuances of a customer’s interaction on their website.
A surf-along deep dive also allows organizations to identify critical moments during the user journey and optimize those moments to improve the overall user experience.
Value of Surf-Alongs
Surf-alongs can be valuable to nearly all types of organizations, whether the key audience is consumers or business decision-makers.
The projects can also be used for anything from simple brochure-like websites (where a user might visit only once) to complex mobile applications that serve an ongoing purpose for users.
Like most user experience research, surf-alongs include a mix of observation and inquiry.
During the research sessions, the researcher will utilize an interview guide to direct the conversation (focusing on key questions to ask or tasks they want to ensure the user attempts to accomplish).
However, the bulk of this research focuses on observing the natural user experience.
As users navigate from one page to another, attempting to accomplish tasks, issues with the user experience can become quite apparent (whether the user vocalizes frustration or not).
By observing in real-time, the researcher can ask appropriate follow-up questions, and in some cases go “off-script”, to gain a deep understanding of the user experience and ultimately, valuable insights for the client.
Benefits of Surf-Alongs
While the goal of surf-alongs can vary from project-to-project, the key focus is often understanding the following aspects of user experience.
Understanding needs and motivations
When a user visits your website or uses your app, what are they trying to accomplish? Do they have a primary goal? Do they have secondary goals during their visit?
Knowing the motivations and key needs of your audience through surf-alongs allows you to prioritize information for users and create a smooth, engaging experience.
Identifying pain points and barriers
How easy or difficult is it for users to accomplish what they’ve set out to do when using your website or app?
Surf-alongs are an excellent methodology for identifying real-world pain points. These studies often reveal barriers not considered by the development team (as user expectations and goals often deviate from what is planned during development).
Identifying and resolving user pain points with this research will pay dividends when it comes to enhancing the overall user experience.
Understanding the decision-making process
What are the most critical moments during the user experience? When does a consumer make a decision to purchase a product or use your service? What factors impact those decisions?
Observing how users navigate through a website or app while making decisions can be an eye-opening experience. By asking follow-up questions, the researcher can gain an understanding on what drives decision-making during these critical moments.
Increasing user engagement
Surf-alongs help you understand how to capture the user’s attention, address their goals effectively, and encourage them to stick around.
The back-and-forth dialogue researchers have with users allow them to understand what they like most (or like least) about their experience. By understanding what is most compelling and soliciting ideas on what else users want to see, organizations can create highly engaging customer experience.
Enhancing communication and messaging
By understanding the user experience, organizations can also understand what words, phrases, or overall messaging strategies are resonating with users within a website or app.
Understanding the customer decision-making process also helps you uncover what factors are most critical for users and what communication points need to be featured or prioritized during an on-site experience.
Establishing a competitive advantage
While research of any kind can help an organization gain a competitive advantage, this is especially true with surf-alongs.
The research provides organizations with a mix of actionable outcomes, all the way from quick fixes to development of long-term goals or even generation of new product/service ideas. Many organizations make the mistake of not having an in-depth conversation with users about their experience (or they only test user experience internally).
Conducting research with actual users allows them to reflect on their experience with your organization's website/app, while also drawing comparisons to competitive experiences. Having this perspective from actual users allows organizations to gain a strong edge against competitors.
Increased Return on Investment
Ultimately, enhancing usability of a website or app based on the insights from surf-alongs can lead to increased engagement and conversions. This is a natural benefit of surf-alongs, as customers will continue to visit a site that’s designed with their experience in mind.
A small investment in surf-alongs can help lead the way to long-term profitability, simply by improving the overall on-site experience.
Conclusion
Surf-alongs are a valuable form of research and should be considered by any organization with a website or app. In-the-moment research like this is invaluable when it comes to understanding user experiences and provides organizations with rich and actionable insights.
The research allows organizations to gain insights into understanding user behaviors in a real-world environment. Insights from surf-along research are used to guide strategic planning for websites and platforms, develop communications/marketing, and ultimately optimize user experience.
Contact Our Market Research Firm
If you’re interested in partnering with Drive Research to conduct surf-along or other user experience research, our team is ready to help you.
Our national market research firm offers a variety of services that can be tailored to your brand’s specific needs. To learn more, get in touch with us today!
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Chris Coville
As the Director of Research of Drive Research, Chris has 10 years of experience in the market research field and has completed projects with organizations across the globe. He was also named a 2017 40 Under 40 Award winner.
Learn more about Chris, here.
