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Usertesting CEO Darrell Benatar on Hot Trends and the Best Italian Food in San Francisco
Editor’s Note: With Conversion Conference 2012 San Francisco just around the corner, we thought it’s about time you learn a bit more from each of our speakers. So we put on our journalist/paparazzi hat and placed each speaker on the proverbial hot seat by asking four questions, including one which can be considered a burning issue for digital marketers and other professionals in the internet industry: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). From this day until the conference, we’ll be featuring a speaker and their answers to the questions so be sure to check out our blog regularly.
But wait, there’s more! You can join in and do some pre-conference engagement with our speakers by sending in your own questions through email, Twitter, or our Facebook Wall. We’ll make sure your questions get the attention they deserve and even feature them here.
Now, for the part you’ve been waiting for. The first one in our Conversion Conference Speaker Q&A session is Darrell Benatar, CEO of Usertesting.com. Usertesting, as its name implies, is a company that provides usability testing to website owners. Their ability to provide the fastest and cheapest usability testing on the market is highly recognized within and outside their client circle.
1) What do you think is the hottest trend in optimization or conversion for 2012?
Looking beyond small changes that lead to incremental increases in conversion and actually trying to understand and improve the customer’s experience in order to make changes that lead to sustainable gains in conversions. Doing this involves going beyond traditional analytics tools and using feedback from customer service, surveys, and user testing.
2) What would you say is the biggest mistake people (still) make when it comes to optimization?
In relation to my answer above, the biggest mistake would be half-hearted measures to understand consumers’ experiences on the website, which result in half-baked efforts at improvement.
3) What’s your favorite place to hang out in San Francisco (that one place you just have to drop by/visit when you’re in the city)?
E Tutto Qua on the corner of Broadway and Columbus. Best Italian food in San Francisco. And not too expensive.
Unfortunately, the paparazzi style on these interviews appears to have seriously jeopardized our ability to get beyond “no comment” on SOPA and PIPA. Maybe next time we should give our speakers ample warning so they can learn about the issue, don’t you think?
Got a question for Darrell that can’t wait till March? Post it on the comments section below, tweet it to us, or post it on our wall and we’ll make sure he gets it.
More About Darrell
Darrell Benatar, a serial entrepreneur, founded Surprise.com in 1999. He didn’t believe in usability testing until he saw it in action. Darrell was shocked at the problems people were having with things he’d always assumed worked fine. So he began doing user testing for all redesigns of Surprise.com, which was later selected by Time magazine as one of the “50 best websites.” Pleased with the effectiveness of user testing, Darrell now focuses on helping other website owners do the same.
See Darrell Live!
Join Darrell at his session on “Biggest Usability Flops from 100K Usability Tests” at Conversion Conference West 2012 in San Francisco, California. See the full agenda and read more about this session.
Want to save on your Conversion Conference Registration? Follow him on Twitter and request a discount code.
