UserTesting Tuesday: If a picture is worth 1,000 words then I’m a unicorn. Spoiler alert: I’m not a unicorn.

Whoever said, “A picture is worth a thousand words” was an idiot.

A picture is worth MUCH MORE than a thousand words.

“Would you rather look at me, or read an instruction manual? Case closed."

– Snuggles, the adorable kitten

To show us an example of the power of images, we used this week’s UserTesting Tuesday to see what we could learn from Amazon.com.

Here’s a 24 second clip from the UserTesting.com test that we ran --

UserTesting Tuesday:

Website: Amazon.com

Task: Go to Amazon.com. Find the right e-reader for you. Go through the buying process, but don’t click the final "submit order" button.

Phil's 3 Key Takeaways:

1. Do more with your images – Instead of just showing a straightforward image of what you’re trying to sell, consider being more creative. Amazon added words to one of their images that immediately caught our participant’s eye. Then, they used another image to compare the Kindle to the size of a pencil. That particular image got our participant to stop in her tracks and say “Ohhh, that’s cool.” As you can see, these ideas aren’t revolutionary, but they’re different enough to help the product stand out.

   For another example, Apple does a great job of this by often showing a hand in their product images. This helps to bring their products to life and show off their small size.

   Apple also does a great job of making their images pop

2. Sum it up - Amazon was able to sum up their product in 6 simple words: “Small, light, and perfect for reading.” Brilliant. Visitors to this page looking for an e-reader will see this and instantly know they’re at the right place. What are things you can do to better sum up your product? And, how do you make sure to position this messaging in the right place?
3. Location, location, location - It takes our participant less than a second to focus in on the hero image, and read the summary of the product. Amazon put that image in the perfect location. They made the image large, put it in the top left, made sure there was lots of contrast, and made sure the surrounding text was smaller and not distracting.

Enough from me…what did you take away from the video? How do you make the most of your images? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.