Northland Nature Nest
REVIEW
PROBLEM
As a small store, Northland Nature Nest’s website is, understandably, quite small.
The collection of products shown on Northland Nature Nest’s website, however, is relatively large for such a small store. I posed the possibility that the current navigation features were not robust enough to make the searching process quick and easy. This was especially true of products that are more difficult to categorize.
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Also, as there was no search bar, other information, such as the blog, store hours, etc. could potentially have been difficult to find.
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In order to investigate these possibilities, I performed two user needs interviews with a usability component with users familiar with the store website.
University of Michigan via Coursera.com | Understanding User Needs | 2019
DETERMINING USER NEEDS
User Needs Interviews
As a part of this project, I addressed what users of the Northland Nature Nest website (northlandnaturenest.com) find useful or frustrating when searching for:
a) specific information or
b) products.
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The Northland Nature Nest website is the companion site to the small, local shop of the same name. The store sells products relevant to backyard birds: bird food; bird feeders; birdhouses; pole systems; and so on. They do not sell items online, but they do maintain a database of their products online for perusal.
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Affinity Diagram
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1. Failing Expectations
The first key issue found through interviews was that confusion arises when elements are not what or where the user expects.
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Interviews showed that a number of key aspects of the site are difficult to discern, leading to frustration and confusion. For example, users found the hamburger menu icon for the mobile global navigation menu difficult to find. P01 scrolled around for quite a while before managing to find the hamburger menu.
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Users also found the lack of a search engine on the main Featured Products page disconcerting. For example, while on the Featured Products page looking for a Carpenter Bee Trap, P02 said, “What I am thinking right now is that I’d be looking for a search engine.” It took over a minute for P02 to determine an alternative direction in which to look.
Recommendations
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Make the hamburger menu icon more noticeable or eliminate it entirely and make the menu visible on mobile devices.
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Add a search engine on the main Featured Products page.
Additionally, the interviews revealed that users expect information throughout the site to be more up-to-date, relevant, and complete. For example, the site requires more—or more inclusive—categories to allow users to more easily find less common items. P02 nearly gave up trying to find the Carpenter Bee Trap on the Featured Products page, because none of the categories made sense for it. P01 remarked upon the lack of navigation, category, or tag for locally-made products, despite the fact that Northland Nature Nest emphasizes their status as a small, local shop.
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In general, information on individual product pages is not robust or relevant enough to meet user expectations. P02 remarked upon the paucity of product information on individual product pages. Among the efforts made, P02 looked at Related Products on the Ant Moat product page to find the Carpenter Bee Trap, but found nothing even remotely related.
Recommendations
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Add a catch-all category, such as Miscellaneous, for items that don’t fall into the current categories.
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Create a tag or category for locally-made products.
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Add product descriptions to individual product pages.
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Update the Related Products algorithm so that they show truly related products.
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2. Efficiency
The second key issue determined by interview data is that users come to the site with a particular task in mind and try to accomplish that task as easily and efficiently as possible: the site should reflect that.
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According to the interviews, global navigation is most commonly used, possibly because the other options are less salient. Participants intermittently made use of the side menu, but usually only as a last resort. P01 tried the tags “bees” to find the Carpenter Bee Trap, but only after exhausting every other option. Similarly, P02 tried using the “Miscellaneous” sidebar menu option to find the Carpenter Bee Trap, but only after trying many other options.
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Participants used global navigation more than any other form of navigation. When looking for something less pricey, P02 went to the “On Sale” global navigation menu item. Also, P02 first went to the global “Contact Us” menu option to look for store hours.
Recommendations
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Make the sidebar navigation more universal (i.e. display it on every product-related page) and more salient.
Users also tend to have a specific reason for visiting the site, and dislike anything that detours from that path. For example, users typically visit the site briefly, stay mostly on the Home Page, and look for updates, which they usually find straightforward. P01 spent five minutes on the site the last time she visited. P01 also recently (and usually) goes to the site to see updates and seasonal information.
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Also, users dislike when links take them away from the site (e.g. to a new window or site). For example, P01 said, “I haven’t visited [the blog], because those kinds of things make me nervous.” P01 then went on to explain that they made her nervous because there is no indication as to whether or not the links might take her to another site.
Recommendations
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Ensure that any links that lead to other sites are clearly labeled.
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Update the look of the blog heading on the Home page to make it clear that it’s a part of the same website.
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Later, I performed an A-B test on the mobile version of Northland Nature Nest's website.
The question at hand was whether users preferred one menu display over another.
Here are the two options:
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University of Michigan via Coursera.com | UX Research at Scale
RESULTS
A-B TEST
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Participants
Participants were recruited through a variety of convenience methods, including through Coursera forums, the Northland Nature Nest email list, and friends and family. The fact that this was a convenience sample may have introduced some bias into the study; however, the basic nature of the preference options should make such bias minimal.
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Materials
The testing material for this study was a preferences test in the form of a survey. Each survey consisted of 28 questions: five demographics questions; eight questions referring to one home menu image (A); eight questions referring to a different home menu image version (B); and three questions that explicitly contrast the two versions.
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This survey was designed to measure individuals’ preferences for two different main menu mobile configurations. The control version (A) shows a simple hamburger menu toward the top right of the page, while the experimental version (B) shows a full menu spanning the top line of the page. The hypothesis for this study was that participants would prefer the experimental version (B) to the control (A). The survey is entirely online, so approximately half (40%) were shown version A first, then version B, while the other half (60%) saw them in reverse order to balance the within-subjects design.
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Participants were sent a link to click that brought them to the survey page. Participants were assured that their responses would remain anonymous. They filled out the survey, and were thanked for their time.
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The current study is designed to see if main menu version (A or B) has an effect on preference reports. The results indicate that there is a difference: version B tends to be preferred over version A.
There was a main effect for version consistent with the hypothesis for the Likert-style question types: participants preferred version B (M = 77.54%, SD = 0.18) over version A (M = 69.63%, SD = 0.17), t(19) = 2.09, p < 0.003. This is shown below.
Female
Male
7
13
METHODS
PROCEDURE
RESULTS
Figure 1. Likert question score averages by menu version.
The next two figures are pie charts showing the answer spread for the Likert-style questions for versions A and B.
Figure 2. Answer spread for Likert-style questions for menu version A.
Figure 3. Answer spread for Likert-style questions for menu version B.
As you can see, participants reported positively (Agree and Agree Strongly) much more often for version B than for version A.
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Likewise, participants were reportedly slightly more likely to recommend version B (NPS = -5, M = 6.59, SD = 2.51) than version A (NPS = -15, M = 6.15, SD = 3.05) to others, though it was not a statistically significant difference, t(19) = 2.09, p = 0.137. The next figure displays the average Net Promoter Scores by menu version.
Figure 4. Net promoter score averages by menu version.
Taken together, there was a main effect for version consistent with the hypothesis for the SUPR-Q questions: participants preferred version B (M = 7.13, SD = 2.06) over version A (M = 6.54, SD = 2.28), t(19) = 2.09, p < 0.05, as shown below.
Figure 5. SUPR-Q score averages for versions A and B.
Almost all (95%) of the participants reported that they were able to find the main menu for version B (with the full menu spread), but much fewer (60%) were able to find the main menu in version A (the hamburger menu).
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A binomial test indicated that the proportion of participants who considered version B more visually appealing (.84) was higher than the expected .50, p < 0.005 (1-sided). Likewise, the proportion of participants who considered version B more easily navigated (.89) was higher than the expected .50, p = 0.001 (1-sided). Finally, the proportion of participants who considered version B more understandable (.89) was higher than the expected .50, p = 0.001 (1-sided). These results are displayed in the figure below.
visual appeal
ease of navigation
understandability
Figure 6. Percent preference for menu version B over version A.
As you can see, version B was overwhelmingly preferred over version A.
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The data indicate that participants preferred version B over version A on various levels; however, the Net Promoter Scores showed that participants were quite unlikely to recommend either version. This indicates that, while versions B is preferred, neither version is likely to instigate business growth. Therefore, more work is required to find an ideal look for the mobile website.