Usability Evaluation and Site Redesign
Background Information:
This project was part of of a prework session to apply for an UX/UI Design Bootcamp at Iron Hack.
At first the task seemed very hard for me as I have never done any testing or writing a case study about it. But as soon as I started I was not able to get it out of my mind.
With that motivation I started and tried to come up with a reasonable result.
Case Study
Objectives
My main task was to test the usability of a booking app to elaborate issues and main friction areas when using the application and find solutions from the insights to develop a new lofi prototype of the website application.
Methodology
At first I had to decide for a user type/taget group and do a bit of research for specifics of the final destination.
Young group — 20–40 y/o (4 people)
· planning the trip one year in advance
· like to share as much time together and plan for a lot of fun
· interested in a mix of culture and leisure. You have all saved for the last year for the trip
· while you’re still price-conscious this is the opportunity to spoil themselves
Specifics of destination: BARCELONA
· Nearest airport: Barcelona Airport/30 mins from City Center
· Currency is Euros
· Medical needs: Covid-19 vaccination or negative test
· No Visa or Passport. Entry with identity card for EU citizens
· Wardrobe: Summer outfits and swim suit/shorts
Benchmarking
With the researched information I compared the mobile websites Kayak, Skyscanner & Tripadvisor for usability heuristics and identified that Tripadvisor performs BEST for the selected user type.
Usability Heuristics
· Home Page Usability
· Search Usability
· Navigation
· Aesthetic & Minimalist Design
· User Control & Efficiency
· App Utility
Testing
For the first task the users have 5 seconds to take a look at the home screen.
What did they see?
What can this tool do for them?
Where would you search for a flight or hotel?
Next step was an App usability test based on the users needs
· what kind of budget do they have
· what kind of housing do they need
· how would they move around
· do they have any time restrictions or schedule is flexible
· do they need special care or services
The task for the users is to surf on the given app. They need to book a trip with flight, accomodation, car rental and find cultural events as option.
Personas
Fritz, 22 years old, information and telecommunications clerk from Berlin.
Bryan, 30 years old, Data Analyst from Berlin.
Anja, 32, Global Strategic Procurement Manager from Berlin.
Results & Insights
While testing each person I quickly realised that everyone behaved differently when interacting with the site and their elements.
For example some users did not even notice the main function when showing the home page to them for five seconds. Some immediately knew what this product can do, due to the present logo.
When booking a service some users were very picky in choosing the right Hotel or flight and others
did not even look after reviews or anything. It even happend that one user did not use any search functions or given elements on the page. Only the burger menu was the go to source.
Bad experiences?
· Users were distracted by home page design.
· Application was cumbersome and unclear at the beginning.
· Navigation not efficient. To many diffrences, took them a while to find the proper topic.
· Create a trip function not intuative, hard to understand and missing information. User failed.
What to improve?
For improvement oft he users journey I decided to focus on the Home Page, Navigation, Create a trip function & Visual Design:
1. The homepage is very pretty but distracts most users from the essentials. The image should be more inconspicuous and the search function supposed to be moved clearly into the foreground.
2. The overall navigation has to be more understandable and intuitive.
3. The create a trip function needs a complete makeover because most users wanted to try it but failed! After they created a trip the page looks exactly the same and they did not receive a notification. An obvious step by step experience with detailed instructions, easy handling and documentation is the key!
4. Also the visual design should be adjusted, just a tiny bit. A stylish and modern design is quite useless when the customer is not satisfied with the journey and is distracted by large and colorful images.
Redesign Wireframes
As mentioned before I decided to focus on the Home Page, Navigation, Create a trip function & Visual Design. In the following images you can see my idea of making the whole app journey less time consuming, easy to use and much more efficient.
Retesting
The next step, in a real invironment, would be to test the improvements and solutions again. But I guess that is going to be part of the Bootcamp.
Conclusion
It was quite a tough way for me to get this challenge done. But as you know, hard works pays off and I am quite happy how it turned out. The challenge gave me a lot of fun and also a little bit of self-confidence to not give up.
I am really looking forward to future projects to learn more and improve my skills and abilities.
Thank you very much for you attention!
