The client wasn’t sure customers would understand its new digital payment functionality. The idea was to allow customers to load digital currency to their mobile devices by way of a mobile website. The design team had iterated through dozens of sets of storyboards, but still felt uncertain that the target audience would find the mobile website intuitive. Plus, the client wanted to go to market with a minimally viable product, but no one was certain about the relative priority of each feature.
The Plan
Collect target audience information from the client and draft informal user profiles. Then conduct guerilla usability testing by recruiting agency employees who fit the target user profiles. Test key tasks and gather feedback on the feature set. Summarize results, and provide analysis and recommendations to the design team.
The Deliverables
Deliverables created for this project included:
- User profiles for two primary user groups
- List of key tasks on the site
- Screener for recruiting
- Testing script
- Videos of testing sessions
- The summary document explaining testing methodology, outcomes and recommendations
The Outcome
- Key Conclusions.
- Two key tasks had high failure rates because testers didn’t understand the distinction between two different, but related features on the site.
- One user group had a higher overall success rate with the key tasks vs. the other group.
- Users validated the core feature set.
Key Recommendations
Reframe two related features on the site as one feature, with two different options for implementation. This way, users wouldn’t have to pick between the two options until they were far enough down the path to understand the distinction. Then retest to validate the change.
Develop two separate and targeted messaging plans to communicate the features of the new website to the two primary user groups. Consider developing shortcuts for power users in later iterations of the site.
Proceed with the core feature set at launch, but include a feedback mechanism on the site. Use the feedback to prioritize future feature rollouts and enhancements.
