Website Usability
Evaluation
2017
The project
Optimize is a user research consultation company based out of Wichita State University. After rebranding and overhauling their website, they requested a usability evaluation to assess how well potential clientele and user participants could navigate their website. I worked as project lead over a 4 person team and directed the study from start to finish in a 2 week sprint.
Expert review
I first conducted an expert review to evaluate what would likely be the major issues and choose representative tasks for the user study. At this point our team decided to include both desktop and mobile versions of the website, as it would commonly be accessed from both.
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Due to the short timeline, we decided to only run 5 participants from each of the target demographics: potential clients and student user participants. Under less time constraint, I would have preferred to run at least 20 participants total, so that 5 from each demographic could evaluate both the desktop and mobile sites.
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Next, I constructed task protocols for both user groups, and began recruitment.
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User testing
The final N was 6, due to dropout and the 1 week timeline for testing. The workflow for the study was as follows:
Navigation
The navigation bar was difficult to understand, users were confused by the alternating colors and alphabetical organization.
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We used this data to implement changes - structuring the menu into a hierarchy of terms and color-coded by currently selected pages.
Contact Information
The company's footer contact information did not list its building and room number.
This turned out to be an impactful problem, as finding the building to participate in user studies is a common reason for visiting the site.
This simple fix will prevent a lot of future user frustration.
Similarly, the directions to the office did not specify the room number. This was easily added.
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Based on user suggestion, the map was also modified to zoom in on the building where the company was located.
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In the previous version, it was too small for users to see.
The task that required the user to find the location of the building only had a 50% success rate.
Purpose
There was some user confusion about the site's purpose. It was noted that the site seemed modern and technology-based, but didn't explicitly state what it was for.
"What is this website's purpose? It's hard to tell without clicking into anything" - student
"It talks about technology, but doesn't explain what the company does"
- potential client
To address this, an additional item was added under the About Us tab.
Overall, the user testing revealed many usability issues that had gone undetected in the original design of the website. This project is a perfect example of the fact that good intentions can't replace user testing - even when your company specializes in usability!