Role: User Experience
BACKGROUND
Love to Recycle is a resource site to help multi-residence complexes, business, and other facilities that don't have a recycling program set one up.
CHALLENGE
The project recently went live and the areas that were thought to be valuable content were not being accessed. We needed to make a change to drive more users to start programs and to get matched up with Haulers. We had suspicions on what was causing users to drop, but didn't know for sure.
SOLUTION
I decided to run usability tests and test our assumptions. We ran the tests against small business owners, managers and senior office members to see how they would use the site. I employed a think aloud technique and filmed both the participant and their actions on both desktop and mobile.
Each test was ran on an iMac, with Silverback to capture the screen and the user.
SAMPLE TASK
Scenario 1
As an employee of an organization you notice that there’s a high number of empty bottles and containers in the kitchen garbage. As someone who recycles at home, you believe a similar program can be implemented in the work environment, but lack the knowledge to start such a program. As you flip through one of the magazines left in the kitchen area, you notice an ad for lovetorecycle.ca. You return to your desk, magazine in hand, and enter the lovetorecycle.ca website into your browser.
Task 1.1
Start:
Homepage (http://www.lovetorecycle.ca/) on Desktop
Prompt:
In detail, what are the two things you need to do to get things moving on the program for your organization?
Why:
We’re trying to gain insight on how people are navigating to the ‘Start a Program’ section
We’re trying to gain insight on how people are navigating to the ‘Start a Program’ section
Direct Success:
Reaches http://www.lovetorecycle.ca/start-program/step-1-getting-started/ through the tabbed Secondary Navigation
Reaches http://www.lovetorecycle.ca/start-program/step-1-getting-started/ through the tabbed Secondary Navigation
Indirect Success:
Reaches the page through anything but Secondary Nav
Failure:
Not reaching page
Our assumption is that the secondary nav will not be used and/or could show to be confusing.
I employed a think aloud method to get participants to give their rationale for the decisions that they made. This gave me insight into motives and the webcam helped me identify key "ah-ha" moments, and moments of extreme frustration/confusion.
After the tests were completed, I created a datalog so that I could analyze tasks by efficiency, success criteria, and identify any standout moments or reoccuring patterns.
SAMPLE PARTICIPANT SUMMARY
Jimmy
Background
30 years old, Business Analyst, Bachelor of Science
Highlight
User was very pleased with the visual design, said it was a good contrast from the typical corporate sites that he normally uses
User was intrigued by the side banners and icons buttons
User appreciated the information appearing in sequence
User expected a google map for filtering haulers
User wanted to use Google instead of site to find a hauler for mobile
User had no issues using mobile website
Lowlight
User felt like they had to read all the text to get a sense of what things were about and said that reading it seemed like a “drag”
User skipped sections of text
User navigated with little confidence (Opening new tabs in case he had to go back)
User felt that the content that he neede wasn’t all in the same place
User thought the secondary nav was annoying
RESULTS
After running the tests, we reviewed the footage to look for common struggles, inefficiensts in completing tasks and any insightful feedback whether it was verbal or through facial expression.
The usability testing allowed us to focus efforts towards the painpoints and make more confident improvements to the site. After the data driven design was implemented, we saw an immediate bump in usage in the areas we focused on efforts on.
