DH110-22F-MahamKhawar

Assignment02

User Testing

The Institute for Sustainable Communities is an international non-profit organization which aims to reduce climate pollution in different countires through a wide-range of projects spanning from clean energy transition to green finance.

We will be performing a usability test for the organization’s website, linked here. The purpose in conducting this usability is to pinpoint user behavior in noticing flaws to current designs and navigation. Usability tests seek to affirm what was noted in the initial heuristic evaluation, while also pinpointing other areas of improvement. Users are asked to complete tasks while verbally explaining their decisions and feelings when doing so.

From my heuristic evaluation, the usability issues I found for the site were:

For my usability test, I performed it remotely with my participant. I was in a private setting, being my university dorm. I used Zoom to screen record the usability test. Through Zoom, I was able to give the participant remote control of my screen, so that they could directly navigate the site through my screen, which was being recorded.

Here is an overview of the process for the usability test:

User Testing Materials

The usability testing materials are here. I used a Google Form for this section.

User Testing Video

The video link is here. I used Zoom to conduct this test, and gave the participant remote control of my screen which is how I was able to record both the screen and participant at the same time.

Improving User Testing

From this pilot test, I was able to learn what current usability issues were present. For example, a lot of the labeling proved to be confusing inconsistensies for the user. There was also no filtering within subpages which limited user freedom. For example, if the user was looking at blogs and wanted to limit it to blogs written within a certain time frame or blogs about a certain topic, there was no way to do so. In terms of what went well, I feel I did a good job of trying to ask what the user why they felt a certain why or why they were doing a task like this. However, I think I could improve on knowing when to step in and have the user move on from the task before getting too frustrated or confused. In short, I did appreciate this pilot as it gave me an opportunity to test out the hunches from my heuristic evaluation and get more insight into the site’s usability.