How much do users know?

I was with a client the other day and we were talking about how to track (analytics) that users were calling the different telephone numbers of the client’s members; the website is essentially a searchable listing of members and their details.

I explained that TrueLocal did it by revealing most of the telephone number, though required the user to click to reveal the full number. You can see an example in the screenshot below: 

There were a few people from the client in the meeting; the first commented that she didn’t know why the number was hidden though would click it.

I found this interesting.

The second commented that they assumed that the telephone number hiding was for tracking clicks and so wouldn’t click it.

I found this even more interesting.

A few years back, a friend of mine told me about a video he watched of different user being interviewed and observed. One girl in the video who claimed to be an advanced web user, clicked the Quicktime logo under a video to watch the video.

Interesting.

She downloaded Quicktime 28 times. No kidding.

Very interesting.

To be honest, I’m not sure what this says or what you can ultimately do about it.

Users aren’t stupid. They just don’t build websites for a living.

Or is it a usability thing, and the joke is on the web designer. After all, most of us can get into any car and start and drive it.

Not so with online shopping it seems.

Of course, throw in a dash of user suspicion and mis-trust and there you have the inexplicable user; and me, the poor web designer, wondering whether it’s the user or me.