Minty: Testing a Landing Page
Role: UX Researcher (usability testing)
Timeline: March 2024
Background
Whether it's "Link in bio!" or "7 Best Snow boots for NYC Winter" or even "You can find the exact product I'm using in the description box below," chances are you encounter affiliate marketing whenever you see products online. And whenever there are products online, you know Google will also be there to push your selection into a purchase.
(Someone's got to optimize these search engine results too…)
Minty is an affiliate marketing tool that helps marketers top the Google search game by optimizing their product displays for Google search results. Think SEO, but specifically for product images and names instead of text from articles.
I performed a variety of UX capacities for Minty, including designing product display options, but most importantly I helped research the usability and understandability of the business' landing page.
Let's dive in.
Methodology
Affiliate marketing isn't the most intuitive niche in the world, but it is certainly understandable when you start explaining to someone its purpose.
My hope (and that of Minty's founder) was that the landing page could help visitors quickly get to "Oh, I see what this does for shopping" thanks to a information hierarchy that prioritizes explaining the industry niche and Google's role within it.
At the end of each test, I went a step further and asked participants to repeat the prompts using the site of an established competitor. This allowed us to make comparisons to supplement our eventual findings.
Study considerations
Affiliate marketing is a niche that has way more users — often those who aren't marketers by trade — than producers. And since Minty targets users, I decided it was appropriate to gather test participants who had a casual understanding of business and digital marketing.
Of course, this meant we didn't have insight from industry professionals, but as we tested Minty's site we could evaluate how other companies tackled industry-heavy vs. -light messaging. Test participants were also similar in age and education levels, so these were also limitations to consider while synthesizing recommendations.
Highlight of findings
Since y'all want to know the tea…
✅ Positives
All participants felt the FAQs were helpful in explaining Minty’s function
Target audience: All participants felt the target were small/midsized businesses seeking to grow their online presence
All participants could easily find the pricing options
🫢 Minor issues (Easy to solve, low-hanging fruit)
Confusing jargon, areas to make more concise
Blog posts appear out of place
Icons are clean but not reflective of product; Minty + spearmint branding unclear
⏰ Major issues
Users understood the purpose of Minty, but not its implementation
Lack of demo opportunity
Unclear what separates Minty's value proposition from that of competitors
Recommendations + reflections
While Minty's landing page is pretty solid in its ability to explain its product and how it interfaces with Google and seller platforms, this series of usability tests showed that there are still muddy spots worth taking time to clean up so the information on the site could be crystal clear. More importantly, with these findings in hand, we could figure out how to tie-in Minty's marketing initiatives and build other necessary website components.
Finally, this UX research project was a pleasant respite from a concurrent design project and I could exercise my survey-constructing, test-conducting, and findings-synthesizing noggin away from Figma. I think I saved my brain from getting "Figma fried."
As ironic as it sounds, sometimes the best thing you can do as a designer is to step away from designing for a few days, and then returning with fresh eyes and braincells.