The Problem
Evaluate Ladder Up’s website for usability. Utilize heuristic evaluations and user testing to review the website and identify design improvements. Communicate the design changes effectively to laypersons.
My Role
User Testing Moderator, Test Design, Report Writer and Editor
Ladder Up Suspected Something Wasn’t Right
Ladder up is a Chicago-based nonprofit that provides no-cost tax services to residents. They depend on a large volunteer staff to provide as many services as possible. Ladder Up partnered with our DePaul class for assistance with usability issues. A representative told us that over the last season they had received such a large number of questions from volunteers using the site that they realized there was a problem. The spokesperson described the process of volunteering and shared some specific examples of frequent questions, such as where to find a particular training video.
Heuristic Evaluations
We began by conducting a heuristic evaluation of the site, having each member of the team walk through the site and note usability issues. Once finished, we compiled the findings into a final evaluation which guided our subsequent research. This is in keeping with best practices as described by Lewis and Rieman, among others. Our evaluations led to research questions to explore.
User Testing
Armed with our research questions, we wrote the user test plan. We prepared a script for the moderator, task descriptions for the participants, consent forms and data collection tools. Before turning it over to the users, we piloted our test plan to make sure it would help us answer the research questions. We then tested eight participants, compiled our data, and created a report for Ladder Up along with a slide deck to summarize our activities.
Our Recommendations
We wanted to be sure that our partners at Ladder Up would be able to clearly understand our recommendations without having to be UX experts, so we used diagrams to explain examples of what we meant. We also grouped the recommendations according to tasks familiar to the Ladder Up staff to help them understand the context. We made sure data existed to support each recommendation. We prioritized the recommendations based on our perspective of how easy the fix would be and how much of a usability problem it presented. Figure 4 is an example of how we presented each recommendation.
Lessons Learned
- Heuristic evaluations can help guide research, but are assumptions at their core. They guided us when we lacked direction from the Ladder Up representative. Although helpful, we knew that they were no substitute for real user interaction, so we made sure to draw conclusions from the data provided by user testing.
- Small issues add up. Ladder Up’s volunteer site feels old, but there was no HUGE issue, rather a combination of small issues that resulted in a poor user experience. I have experienced few situations that have one single, clear answer. Rather, design solutions tend to be a more nuanced mix of answers to smaller problems.