Usability Testing & Heuristic Review

Participants and Tasks

I collaborated with stakeholders to identify ideal participants, but was denied access to current portal users. I suggested that in lieu of current portal users, we recruit participants that represent new users with no experience or training with the portal. Through this method, we could collect data on how new users navigate the portal when exposed to it for the first time. When recruiting, I made sure each participant had a sales background, so they would have a base understanding of what they could accomplish using the portal.

I worked with stakeholders to define the scenarios and tasks we would have participants complete. Participants were asked to complete 12 tasks using the portal. The tasks covered a range of subjects, including:

  • Finding partner and program information

  • Completing the deal registration process

  • Completing training and certification requirements

  • Locating marketing information for the company’s products

Usability Testing

I recruited participants, administered the pre-test questionnaire, conducted the testing, and acted as moderator. Screen-recording software was used to record mouse movements, facial expressions, and participants verbal reactions to the tasks they were asked to complete. The session data includes the navigational paths taken to find information, time to complete tasks, notable quotes from participants, whether participants were feeling frustrated or calm while completing tasks, and task abandonment.

Many of the participants verbalized similar ideas throughout the testing sessions and in their post-test questionnaires. Some notable participant quotes include:

“The tasks about training introduced several layers of menus and buttons that forced me to do process of elimination to find what I needed”

“After spending more time with it, I could see how it would be a useful tool, but the amount of time needed to become familiar with the labels and dropdown menus could or would be frustrating.”

“Finding information can be tedious, as one is forced to read through a great deal of text. Where information is placed on the site can also be confusing.”

“I also expected to find information about my partner level (and how to change it) under a page about my personal account information. This was not the case.”

Results of the Usability Test

The usability test identified many issues, including:

  1. Expandable banners that hide information are not intuitively clickable

  2. Training and Certification information is spread across many pages

  3. Unnecessary marketing copy clutters the pages

  4. Pages with a lot of text can overwhelm users

  5. Many navigation links and hyperlinks are not phrased intuitively or actionably

  6. Partner level information is not available under personal profiles or account information as expected

  7. The body text on the website is very small, the contrast low, and (for some) hard to read

Heuristic Review

Before running the study with participants, I reviewed the portal according to a set of ten heuristics taken from The Psychologist’s View of UX Design, an article written by Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D. in UX Magazine. This analysis of the portal identified many areas for improvement. Findings from the heuristic review supported many of the patterns identified in the usability test. It also identified new areas for improvement. Overall, I presented a recommendations report with 35 suggestions supported by the actionable findings from the usability report and heuristic review.

Stakeholder Presentation

After testing, I prepared a usability report, recommendations report, and a presentation deck that covered the most pressing findings and recommendations. During my presentation to the stakeholders, I received a lot of feedback that confirmed my findings supported the stakeholders’ original hypotheses (as well as uncovered additional actionable insights) and provided documented, expert evidence that they could use to lobby for a redesign of the partner portal.