What do your visitors experience when they arrive at your site? Is it what they expect? If it isn't, will they stay to find what they want? These are some of the questions that you can answer if you use the "walkthrough" technique. November 29, 2000
Originally, "walkthroughs" were used during structured systems design and programming. The plan for a walkthrough covered how it would be conducted and what the walker would expect to see and experience along the way. Today, I often find that Web sites have been designed to tell their visitors what the site owners want to tell them, rather than what the visitors want to know. I have used walkthroughs to get site owners to see their sites from their visitors' perspective.
It is important to remember that a site walkthrough is a tool, not a rule. There are alternative methods. If you do use walkthroughs, you can tailor the tool to suit you.
How it works
My experience shows that it is better to do two separate walkthrough exercises - one to analyze what visitors experience when they arrive, based upon their reasons for visiting your site; and the second to analyze how those visitors arrive, through referrals or search engines or links or whatever.
We shall only look at the first. You should be able to work out how to do the second.
This is how it works.
Stage 1: Identify
1. List your expected viewers. Use any techniques that work for you. I prefer a mind-mapping tool for this, but sticky notes on whiteboards or index cards in shoeboxes may be more effective for you. I am not going to try to suggest techniques to you in this article. I want us to concentrate on the method itself.
Hints:
Get as long a list as possible. Don't worry about whether you'll have time to go through all the options. You might not, but that's not an issue in this stage.
Don't set a deadline. If someone suddenly thinks of another kind of viewer when you've moved on to stage 2 or even stage 3, then re-plan your walkthrough to include it. Don't reject ideas because they're "too late".
Techniques such as mind mapping can help to document and present your thoughts. You may need to produce justification at some stage, and it's as well to document as you go.
List viewers as plural nouns. Then you can use "they" instead of "he", "she", "it" or "he/she". Viewers are "they" and "them".
2. List the reasons for viewers to visit your site. As you think of a reason for a particular viewer to visit, check whether this reason will apply to other viewers as well. You should be building a tree, from site to viewers to reasons. The reasons can be duplicated across different viewers.
Hints:
Always include the same reason for every viewer to which it applies. This is because the same reason may have a different result for each kind of viewer. In addition, there may be subtleties of interpretation of the reason depending on the kind of viewer.
Don't linger or agonize over this step. If you look at a viewer and cannot think of a new reason for them to visit your site within four seconds, then move on.
Always start a reason with "to". The usage "to check on …" is more powerful than "checking on …" A typical sentence to describe viewers and reasons could be: "Prospects visit to check our qualifications".
3. Add possible results for each reason for each viewer. Try to start each result with the verb "will".
Examples:
Prospects visit to check our qualifications and will be convinced of our competence.
Customers visit to see if we offer other services that they are seeking and will find all the appropriate services that we offer.
Customers visit to see if we offer enhanced versions of our current services and will find all the appropriate service variations that we offer.
Job seekers visit to see if we might employ them and will find all openings that fit their skills and experience.
Stage 2: Plan
The second stage is to plan the walkthroughs.
Here are the steps to planning.
Prioritize the sets of viewers-reasons-results. This means deciding which are the most important to your business.
Calculate the time and resources required for each set.
Use the available people, budget and time to make a cut of the most important sets.
Determine the rules for the walkthroughs.
Determine the starting page for each walkthrough. In many instances this will be the home page. In some instances, different viewers will approach the site through different pages.
Have all walkthrough team members describe the viewers, reasons and results of the sets assigned to them. This achieves two objectives:
It is a demonstration that the team members have a correct understanding of the sets.
It allows particular parameters and circumstances to be discussed and, where appropriate, to be included in the walkthrough plan.
Stage 3: Walk
The third stage is to actually walk through the site as a viewer would. There are some important analogies with walking through the real world.
First, if you're walking through a town, you may, by accident, turn down a wrong street where you may see a shop selling something you want. You will go into the shop and buy it. Later, discovering your mistake, you will turn around and walk back. But, as you go past the shop again, you won't go in and return the item and ask for your money back. You may not find a similar along the correct route. This should apply to walkthroughs of your site as well. If a walker does go down a wrong track, but finds something of interest there, this should be noted. Later, if this item is also on the correct route, then all is well. But if it was only available by walking down the wrong route, then you may want to include it on the correct route as well. Second, as you walk through a town, you may see something that captures your attention but not enough to divert from your route. You may see a shop or an art gallery or a park that you will want to visit at some time, but not now. In a real town, you will make a note - in your memory or in a notebook - to visit that place in the future. As you walk through your site, you should note places that would be of interest to the viewer, although not directly relevant to the viewer's reason for visiting the site this time.
The main technique to be used when walking through your site is to note the route that you take and the reasons for taking that route. The real-world analogy is of noting that you turned into a particular street because it was marked on a map or because there was a sign indicating that you should turn into that street or because you made an inspired guess. You should also note when you are taken to your destination - or nearer to your destination - by a link. This is the equivalent of taking a cab rather than walking. You should also note, when you get out of the cab, whether you are where you thought you would be.
Hints:
Keep the nature of the viewers and the reasons for the visit in mind through the entire procedure. The walkthrough is a check to see whether the viewers will reach their destination. It is not a check of quality or design or speed.
Keep notes of all the "events" of your walk: wrong directions, useful places, diversions, and so on. A useful place along the route may be of great interest but very little importance to the objectives of the viewers.
Try to focus on what is currently visible. External viewers are unlikely to know anything about the site except what they can currently see and what they have already seen.
Stage 4: Act
What you do in the final stage of the walkthrough exercise depends on what
you have planned to do.
You might produce a report, giving recommendations for future action.
You might now embark on a second walkthrough, based on how visitors arrive and whether they will see what they expected to see.
You might make changes to the site to deal with any problems or missed opportunities. You can prioritize the changes to fit with budgets and time limits.
If the walkthrough revealed that some important content was only available by taking the wrong route through the site, then you can plan how to get this content available on the correct route. (This was the analogy of finding something we wanted to buy in a shop on the wrong street.)
If the walkthrough has shown that interesting content appears along the route
that viewers may want to visit later, you can plan how you will enable them to return to it later. (This was the analogy of finding art galleries or parks along the route that you will want to note for a later visit.)
Even if your site does not need any major work done on it, the designers and developers on the walkthrough team will have had a refreshing and perhaps thought-provoking view of their work.
