Project 3: Usability Testing

Ariel Byam, Alison Harris, Nicholas York

Intro

Project 3 is about learning the basics of usability testing. We use the tools developed by Steve Krug as the basic foundation to how we approach the subject. For this project we will be testing two websites, www.midheaven.com and www.forcedexposure.com. Each participant in the trial will be trying to find the album “Gulag Orkestar” by the group Beirut on both sites. The participants will first browse each website to find the album and then using the search bar. They will report back on their experience using both methods. We will also be testing the simplicity of each sites checkout procedure. We want to know if it is straightforward the album can be purchased right away or if they need to sign up for an account beforehand. We want to how that affects their experience shopping on these sites. We also want to know their overall experience and if they have found anything like about each site and what they might change.

Background Midheaven USA is an independent music distributor based in San Francisco, California. They sell and distribute music from independent record labels, magazines, and book publishers worldwide.

Forced Exposure started in the early 80’s as an independent music magazine based out of Massachusetts. From there they began releasing music on their own Force Exposure records and have gone full tilt and eventually became a distributor of CDs and Vinyl records.

Process

For this test we are taking one naïve user and one experienced user and ask them to find a specific album on two music mail order sites. We asked them to search for the album by browsing the website as opposed to using the search bar. This we believe will help determine how well the site is designed, namely through ease of use browsing.

Method

User 1

MidHeaven

The user started on the home page, then scrolled through the albums listed to double check that it was not under new releases or featured titles.

After reading the link options on the top, the user chose to click on browse catlog, which had a drop down menu so they clicked ‘CDs’.

This lead to a list of CDs available on the website. The user had the most difficulty on this page. The albums did not seem to be in any specific order, whether by artist or alphabetical. However after much searching, they noticed the drop down

menu on the right that allowed them to sort by artist.

Forced Exposure

They then were able to locate it on page seven of the CDs and clicked on it, which brought them to the CD’s specific page.

could efficiently find the CD.

The user started on the homepage for Forced Exposure, where they scrolled and looked for the album ‘Gulag Orkestar’. When they noticed it was not on the home page, they chose to click on the button ‘Artists’ assuming that it would show the names of bands, so they

The ‘Artists’ button led them to this page that contained a list of all the artists in alphabetical order. The user then chose to click on ‘B’ for Beirut. After doing so they clicked on ‘Beirut’ and were brought to a page for the artist that only contained one CD.

User 2

Since the Beirut only had one album on the website, they were able to go straight to it from the artist page.

MidHeaven

MidHeaven had a clean, organized homepage that made it easy to figure out where I needed to click to begin searching for the album. The “Browse Catalog” drop down was easily noticeable in the top left corner.

The drop-down menu provided several options to choose from and since I was looking for Beirut’s album, I chose the CD option. It highlighted the option the mouse was on in red to make it clear as to what was selected.

The next page was a tiled display of various CD albums that were organized by Street Date. Because Beirut would be relatively close to the top of an alphabetical sort, I chose to change the sort to “Order by Artist” to find it more quickly.

Because it was alphabetical order, it only displayed the ‘A’ albums on the current page. I scrolled down to click for the next page and clicked through the ‘2’ page until I reached the ‘3’ page where the ‘Be-’ artist names were located.

The Beirut album was at the top of the page and clearly labeled. I clicked on the album cover art to get more information on how to purchase it.

Forced Exposure

The next page gave a short description of the album and options on the various formats it could be purchased in. In the ‘CD’ labeled box, I clicked the purchase button.

The checkout page asked me to either login or create an account to continue the purchase process.

The homepage of Forced Exposure was very busy and cluttered which made it difficult to take in at first. There was a little too much text on the page. However, the color coded navigation bar caught my eye and so it was easy to find the “Artists” button where I could look for Beirut.

Clicking “Artists” took me to a page with a list of artists. There was an alphabetical sort under the navigational bar, so I clicked ‘B’ to search for Beirut.

I clicked on Beirut and was taken to a page that gave a description of the album and the option to purchase it. It was easy to find the purchase button because it was blue and stuck out from the rest of the page.

When I went to checkout after adding the album to my cart, it prompted a screen that asked me to sign in or create an account to continue on with my purchase.

Findings Although the Forced Exposure website was not as minimalistic and designerly as the MidHeaven website, the users were able to find Beirut’s album in fewer, easier steps. However, neither site was difficult to navigate through. Everything was clearly labeled and easy to find and understand. The process on both sites required little thought into what steps the user should take next. It helped that both sites organized the artists alphabetically. Overall, the users were able to easily locate the album on both sites and make it to the checkout stage.

While both websites were navigational it was the Midheaven site that portrayed a cleaner more design friendly looking site that added to its visual appeal. Instead of just listing album or artist names, it also provided images, which added a nice splash of color to contrast the black and white theme of the site. The wide spacing of the content helped make the site easier to absorb since it didn’t feel cluttered with words or pictures. We found that the users would prefer to use the Midheaven site on its design and graphical appeal alone. It felt more up-to-date and user friendly to them.

Recommendations We recommend that Forced Exposure update the design of their website to a sleeker graphical interface that users have come to be accustomed too. While their site was easy to use, its design and graphics made it feel old hat and out of date. Forced Exposure could also organize their browsing sections in a more concise way so that the user doesn’t have to do a lot of scrolling to find something that might be at the bottom of the list. For the Midheaven site, we recommend making their web-browsing feature more apparent or make their drop down menu more apparent to help eliminate any second guessing one might have. The site could also change how they word certain aspects such as the “Order by Street Date” sort with something more obvious.

Conclusion We found that usability isn’t the only issue that may concern a user. Our user’s preferred the sleeker friendly look of the Midheaven site over Forced Exposures older design even though they were both fairly user friendly. So it is important for companies to remember to stay up to date in their design as well as maintain a usable interface.

Works Cited About | Midheaven Mailorder. (n.d.). Retrieved October 26, 2014.

Forced Exposure. (2014, September 25). Retrieved October 26, 2014.