Project summary
Concern worldwide is a global humanitarian organization that aims to end extreme poverty. The project goal was to identify areas of usability improvement, evaluate if the designs were consistent with the user’s mental models, and learn about the donation patterns. A moderated user testing was conducted on their medium-fidelity wireframes for the responsive website as they are currently undergoing a redesign process. On the basis of the usability testing results, four recommendations were given to increase the donation flow and build greater trust amongst the users.
The four proposed recommendations on the basis of the usability testing process
DURATION
8 weeks
TEAM
Katie Im, Tracy Chen & Stacey O’Carroll
ROLE
User testing, Participant recruitment, Conducting moderated usability testing, Note taking as secondary moderator, Analyzing testing data, designing recommendations
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Concern worldwide is a non-profit organization that relies on donations in order to raise the funds for humanitarian aid. The objective of the usability study was to improve the general usability as well as to focus on the donation journey in order to increase the donation flow and build a lasting connection with the site visitors
THE PROCESS
Setting up the usability study
The three steps followed for setting up the moderated user testing
In order to test the usability of Concern Worldwide’s prototype, we utilized moderated remote usability testing. Moderated remote usability testing is a usability testing method in which the user(s) and the facilitator(s) are both present virtually at the same time so that the facilitator(s) can provide guidance, feedback or ask questions while actively watching the user(s) perform the usability test (1).
1. Recruiting participants
HOW DID WE RECRUIT?
In order to recruit our participants, we created a pre-test questionnaire which was circulated amongst the Pratt school of information. Participants were also recruited based on our personal network. Here are the three categories of participants that were identified and used to screen our respondents.
The three targeted participant profiles for recruiting participants
WHOM DID WE RECRUIT?
After our user screening we ended up testing eight participants for our study. The following information is a breakdown of our participant demographics and their donation habits.
The demographic information of the recruited participants
2. Creating interactive prototypes
Since, Concern worldwide was midway through the process of redesigning their website and wanted to test the usability of the progress made by them, we were given the Mid-fidelity wireframes of the desktop and mobile versions of the site. We created interactive prototypes for our users to be able to perform the tasks and interact with the product.
3. Setting up the tasks
We created four tasks that the participants would have to accomplish. These tasks were created to test the most important business goals and objectives on the website.
The four tasks to get the users to test the areas of the website important to achieving business goals
TESTING ON PARTICIPANTS
Conducting Moderated Usablity Testing
The testing process undertaken by our 8 participants
Post Test questionnaire
Pre Test questionnaire
Session highlights
POST TEST ANALYSIS
Uncovering the insights
After concluding the usability testing sessions, we aggregated all of our findings into a rainbow spreadsheet. After the findings were recorded, the team utilized affinity mapping in order to find themes and shared issues by users during our testing. Lastly, we decided to focus our efforts on creating specific recommendations, that were selected based on the following three criteria:
Big picture findings
Through our moderated user testing we found out that most of the participants had a pleasant experience while accomplishing the outlined tasks in the concern worldwide medium-fidelity prototype. A participant remarked that “I think the Navigation is great, its very clear and upfront and I like how donate is highlighted”.
Along with with the positives we were also able to find areas for improving the user experience. A participant said that they “Would prefer to have a little more history or information on the site and the freedom to select my cause before donating.”
RECOMMENDATION 1
Increase the time-sensitive relevancy of text that is on the landing page view
As provided by the client, part of the usability test involved showing participants the four variations of the homescreens, options A-D, and asking about their preferences. Overall, five out of the eight participants preferred option D, as they appreciated the timelines of the caption and its call to action for Ukraine. Some users also voiced their appreciation for the donation box in option A, with one participant saying that combining those certain aspects of option A and option D would be a “home run”. So we created a version which blended both the options and gave users more context before donating.
The proposed recommendation to create a donation banner design which blended both option A & D
RECOMMENDATION 2
Including the option for user’s to donate to a specific Concern cause.
There are multiple donation pathways from Concern’s project profiles and news articles to the once and monthly donation page. Testing participants were confused with the lack of specificity when they reached the donation page from articles or project pages.
Our recommendation is to include the specific cause options in the space where there are other additional options, including dedicating your donation in honor or memory of someone or seeing if your employer will match your donation. This accordion function allows for progressive disclosure — highlighting essential details of a section and revealing more information upon a tap or click, if necessary. As a result, the option is easily accessed but not overwhelming for the user during the donation process.
The proposed recommendation to add the feature to be able to donate to a specific cause
RECOMMENDATION 3
Replacing specific terminology for “Impact Section”
The goal of task 4 in our testing was for the users to look up an article about Burkina Faso. The intent was to see how users would navigate to the Impact section and find the article on the Project Profiles page. During the testing, 63% of users had an issue with the term “Project Profiles” when attempting to complete the task.
Our proposed solution is to add clarity to the terminology used on the Impact page, specifically with the term ‘Project Profiles.’ Since the term did not seem to fall into our users’ mental model of what “Project Profiles” should be, we asked for suggestions or alternatives instead. Some users suggested replacing the term with ‘Impact Areas’ or ‘Impact Stories’
The proposed recommendation replacing the term 'Project Profiles' with 'Impact Stories'.
RECOMMENDATION 4
Matching the user’s expectations in the Events section
For our third task “You want to attend a Concern Global Gala. Find the New York City event that you can register for.” Users had to navigate to attend an event section from the homepage or go to the ‘Take action’ section, reach the events landing page, locate an event and register for it. There were three main areas where the testing participants were getting confused when completing this task
There were three main problem areas:
Problem 1: Not finding donate section under ‘Take action’
Recommendation: Our proposed solution is to add the donate option in the ‘Take action’ screen. The figure below shows the before and after versions.
Problem 2: Difficulty in scanning the events landing page
& finding the nearest event
Recommendation: Adding a ‘Select city’ filter in the events page. This was a simple fix and would allow users to view only the events relevant to them depending on their location.
Problem 3: Confusing CTAs on the register for events pages
Recommendation : Our recommendation is to replace the ‘Notify me’ button with ‘Register now’ button and giving it the prominent spot matching the user’s expectations.
The proposed recommendation to make the events sections more intuitive and understandable
Conclusion
Firstly, the prototype clearly had positives and strengths, as participants reported that overall, the site’s information architecture was understandable and easy to navigate. On the other hand, our usability study resulted in four identified core recommendations that we believe will be highly impactful towards making the current prototype a better user experience. At a high level, these recommendations aim to improve the homescreen, donation experience, naming terminology used throughout the site, and the events experience. These specific four recommendations were chosen as high impact and hopefully feasible to make an immediate improvement to Concern Worldwide’s website experience.