During a half semester long class, I have worked on getting a content strategy prepared for a site called the City of Brooklyn Center. This site has sent in an RFP to vendors already but I was tasked to create a RFP on their content strategy. I have put together a content strategy report of what I have found and needs to be changed on the site. Click HERE to view the PDF file.
About This Project
The site focused on in this project is NaturALL Club. NaturALL Club was chosen to be studied and looked into because the site needed a new user experience (UX) design due to the site’s weak user interface (UI), functionality, navigation, and content on the site. There are recommendations for the site to improve that was found by the many different usability tests that were conducted on representative samples of users on the site. To view the full report on this site, click this PDF link.
Recommendations for the Site
The user interface (UI) of the site including the look, design, and location of widgets and the organization of the site should be changed. The font on the website needs to be changed as well as it is not much appealing to some of the users.
Here are a few more recommendations listed down below:
• Change “Our Products” tab to a different name as users are confused with this and the “Our Ingredients” tab
• Create a bigger, noticeable label or pop up screen about shipping costs
• Create more categories instead of categories with a long list of subcategories
• Label the “Hair Quiz” something like “Best Products for Me” as users may not know what the test is
NaturALL Club
NaturALL Club is a natural hair site and e-commerce site where many users can buy products, look at reviews, and connect with others about the products. The company uses safe, non-toxic, and natural ingredients in their products to nourish users’ hair. The users of these products are women, men, and children with kinky and curly hair across the world including African American women and other women of color. The site also allows the users to connect with others on a Facebook community page.
Methods Used
There were multiple methods used to evaluate the user experience, navigation, functionality, and content on the site. Many of the methods are proposed methods as they are not being executed. But, some methods use representative samples of users on the site to make up actual studies. Here are some methods used for this site:
• Competitive Analysis
• Personas and Scenarios
• A Proposed Interview
• Card Sorting Study
• A Proposed Diary Study
• Cognitive Walkthrough
• Usability Testing Session Report
Competitive Analysis
The competitive analysis used in this project was to compare alike sites and gain insights on what the competitive sites were doing. The sites used to compare against NaturALL Club was Cantu, Shea Moisture, and Jane Carter Solution. In the analysis, it is evident that the NaturALL Club site has weaknesses but they have many unique features on their site. Though the sites are different, the competitive analysis allows the company to see what they lack compared to others, their weaknesses, and core features on the site.
Personas and Scenarios
Three personas were made for the site. A persona is a user-centered design in which one or more fictional characters are made to represent a user type for a brand, site, or product. In the NaturALL Club site, there are a couple of different users who use their products. The three personas depict a young female child, a young adult male, and an older woman. Depicted below are the different users that use the NaturALL Club hair products in the form of a persona.
Proposed Interview
To gain better insight into users’ needs on the site, there will be an interview with the current users and customers of the site. If this was an actual UX design project the interview created will be used for researchers to conduct but this is a proposed interview that would take place. Some of the interview questions include but not limited to: (Click HERE to see full interview)
Proposed Survey
Like the proposed interview, the proposed survey will be used to better understand and learn about the users who use the NaturALL Club site. The answers provided from the users will be anonymous and the information the users give back from the survey will help in better designing the site that caters to the users and their needs. Some of these questions include but not limited to: (Click HERE to see full survey)
Card Sorting Study
Card sorting is a method used for participants in a study to organize topics into categories that make sense to them and can make their own labels for these topics if willing. The card sorting study for this site was an open card sort in which the participants can group cards they saw fit and label the groups themselves. There were three participants in the card sorting study who were each given a set of cards related to the NaturALL Club website. There were 30 cards in total for the participants to sort. (Click HERE to see full analysis)
Overall, two-thirds of the participants created seven categories for the site for navigation. This is more categories than the site has currently. One participant created categories that are unique and creative for the site that ended in exclamation points. Two-thirds of the participants grouped most of the categories together creating a total of 7 categories each but one participant created four categories.
A similarity matrix was created to see how the participants grouped the cards in similar ways. The other method of analyzing the data was a participant centric analysis which shows three different user responses and how strongly the other participants labeled the groups.
This UX method showed that the NaturALL Club site needs to add more navigation tabs and exciting labels to their site that interest the users.
Proposed Diary Study
A diary study is a form of user research. This is a proposed study for the site if it were in an actual UX design project. As participants are conducting their everyday activities they will fill out a self-report on the activities they are involved in regularly. This will create data about the activities they have done along with the participants’ attitudes and expectations. The questions that the users will answer with this study are: (Click HERE to see full proposed study)
The participants of the study will not only be tracking their activity on the NaturALL Club site but tracking their activity on the competitive sites as well. This is to understand how users use natural hair sites and understand their decision making. In the diary study the participants will be answering the questions:
Cognitive Walkthrough
The last method conducted for this site was a cognitive walkthrough. A cognitive walkthrough is a usability method to find issues in a system. The system here is the website. There was one goal for the users to complete and this was to find products to buy on the NaturALL Club website. There were three steps, visit the website, find the list of products, and buy a product from the site, in place and in each step the users answered the same four questions which were:
Throughout the walkthrough, there was one issue that came about. It was the confusion about where the customer can buy the product. Though the site lists some featured products on the website the person going to the site may or may not interpret the “Shop” widget as a list of the products and some may interpret this as a list of products.
Usability Test
Usability tests are used when a researcher wants to observe users while accomplishing tasks given to them. In this usability test, three participants were given five tasks to do on the NaturALL Club website. The participants were screen recorded and timed for how long they performed each task. Participants used a Mac computer and screen recorded from the Mojave screen recording software. Here is the list of the five tasks given to the participants: (Click HERE to see full analysis)
Task 1: You want to find out how NaturAll Club makes their products and what they have in them. Find out what they put in their products.
Task 2: You don’t have any idea what product to buy because you don’t know what works good on your hair texture. Find on the site where you can find this out.
Task 3: You want to know how much shipping would cost for the products. Find where you can get this information.
Task 4: You want to connect to other people using the same hair products as you online. Find out where you can connect with others.
Task 5: You want a certain product but not sure how others like it. Find out how others like the products.
Here is an example of a user completing the usability test from the screen recording.
The image below shows just how long each participant took to complete the test.
There were a few recommendations from the usability test that the site should change and improve on. When users are looking for what is in the hair products some of them will get confused on two different labels that sound similar to each other. These labels are “Our Products” and “Our Ingredients”. It sounds as though these labels go hand and hand which the participants wondered as to why a section is labeled “Our Products” when there is an “Our Ingredients” tab. “Our Products” should be labeled differently so users aren’t as confused with the two categories.
When users want to find what product works best with their hair they may often find a hard time finding where the tab is. This quiz is very prominent on the home page but all of the users bypassed it. My suggestion is to put this hair quiz at the very top of the home page where users can see it. Or, label the “Take the Quiz” tab with something else like “Best Products For Me” because some users may not know what quiz the site is talking about.
The last recommendation I will give is about the shipping cost. When participants were prompted to find out how much shipping and handling was it was the toughest task to complete. Many of the participants clicked in the shopping cart hoping to find out what the cost of shipping was which they were all wrong. They had to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to find the shipping cost. I suggest putting a small information bar at the top of the home page informing users of shipping fees. For example, products over $100 get free shipping. This can be advertised on the home page for users to see.
You may or may not have heard of usability testing. But, what exactly is usability testing, you might ask. Usability testing is when researchers observe users who are attempting to complete a task or a set of tasks scenarios with the company or product.
If you have read my previous blog posts from this particular class I have been working on a site called NaturALL Club. I have completed many tests and diagrams for the company which was interesting to complete.
In my usability test, I had three participants to complete the test. The objective for them was to complete five tasks on the NaturALL Club website. These tasks were listed as:
Task 1: You want to find out how NaturAll Club makes their products and what they have in them. Find out what they put in their products.
Task 2: You don’t have any idea what product to buy because you don’t know what works good on your hair texture. Find on the site where you can find this out.
Task 3: You want to know how much shipping would cost for the products. Find where you can get this information.
Task 4: You want to connect to other people using the same hair products as you online. Find out where you can connect with others.
Task 5: You want a certain product but not sure how others like it. Find out how others like the products.
Here is a video of one of the participants completing the tasks.
While the users complete the tasks, I screen recorded each of them from the Mac Mojave screen recording software. Here were the results of the study.
Creating a usability test can tell you a lot about the site you are working on. As users are taking the test researchers can find some problems with the site and or come up with recommendations to better help the website provide to its users. While observing the participants complete the tasks I noticed a couple of problems the site has. I listed out some of the problems which follow:
In task 1, the participants were given the task to find what was in the company’s products. Some of the participants were confused with the tabs labeled “Our Products” and “Our Ingredients”.
For task 2, finding what products works best for the user was challenging for some of the participants. There is a link on the homepage that prompts users to find what product works best for them. All of the users skipped past this and went to look for it in the navigation toolbar.
In task 3, finding the shipping cost was the challenge for all 3 participants. They all looked everywhere but couldn’t find it. At some point, each participant decided to look deeper into the site and scroll all the way to the bottom which was their last option.
After discussing the problems with the site, I came up with some recommendations the site can use to better it for their users. Here were these recommendations.
As I have found problems during the usability test, I recommend some areas to improve the site. When users are looking for what is in the hair products some of them will get confused on two different labels that sound similar to each other. These labels are “Our Products” and “Our Ingredients”. It sounds as though these labels go hand and hand which the participants wondered as to why a section is labeled “Our Products” when there is an “Our Ingredients” tab. “Our Products” should be labeled differently so users aren’t as confused with the two categories.
When users want to find what product works best with their hair they may often find a hard time finding where the tab is. This quiz is very prominent on the home page but all of the users bypassed it. My suggestion is to put this hair quiz at the very top of the home page where users can see it. Or, label the “Take the Quiz” tab with something else like “Best Products For Me” because some users may not know what quiz the site is talking about.
The last recommendation I will give is about the shipping cost. When participants were prompted to find out how much shipping and handling was it was the toughest task to complete. Many of the participants clicked in the shopping cart hoping to find out what the cost of shipping was which they were all wrong. They had to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the shipping cost. I suggest putting a small information bar at the top of the home page informing users of shipping fees. For example, products over $100 get free shipping. This can be advertised on the home page for users to see.
If you want to understand how your users navigate your site and potentially find problems with it, I suggest creating a usability test for the users to complete. This will give a lot of information about your site and what you can potentially fix.
NATURALLY BRI 