RESEARCH
Seattle Coffee Works
Hueristic Evaluation Findings
To start I evaluated the existing website against Nielsens best practices for usability to establish a baseline report of issues and also identify what worked well.
Home page visuals do not obviously suggest coffee, potentially confusing visitors (NN # Doesn’t Match Real World)
Content includes uncommon words and phrases, eg. “Authenticity Report” (NN# Doesn’t Match Real World)
Primary navigation is hidden; purchase status during check-out is unclear . (NN# Lacks Cognitive Feedback)
Many pages are text heavy (NN# Cognitive Burden)
Pages appear cluttered and lack visual hierarchy (NN# Minimalist Design)
Impact:
Because the most severe issues with the UX are rooted in the nature content on the existing website— we decide to conduct a open card sort and site-wide content audit to surface the exact nature of problems with the user experience on each page.
Baseline Usability Evaluation—Existing Website
I implemented a usability study evaluating the shopping and check-out experience and perceived usefulness of the existing site. Five participants completed four tasks and rated their experience immediately after each task. I acted as test facilitator and conducted post test interviews to probe for deeper insights. Metrics we collected include:
Success to completes task
Pathway taken to complete task (number of clicks)
Overall satisfaction with experience (likert scale & interview)
Would user recommend this website to people they know (yes/no)
FINDINGS & OBSERVATIONS
2/5 Participants easily completed 100% of tasks.
2/5 Users were immediately clear about the purpose and coffee focus of the website
3/5 Primary navigation was difficult to find and content was not located where expected.
3/5 Users were unable to recover from errors while attempting a subscription purchase.
5/5 Some terminology was confusing and did not match “real world” eg. ‘Authenticity Report.’
5/5 Content was not located where user expected.
5/5 Not interested in content
4/5 Text heavy pages led users to abandon website
1/5 Would recommend site to a friend.