Exhibits Development Group
Usability Testing
Client: Exhibits Development Group (EDG) is a local, female-led organization, founded in 2006 by Amy Noble Seitz, business leader, and entrepreneur. EDG is an industry leader in the development, marketing, and distribution of high-quality traveling exhibitions- (largely in arts, science, history, and popular culture) for museums, cultural institutions, and the like. EDG touts the largest portfolio of traveling exhibits in the field; their 75 exhibits having been seen by 8 million visitors internationally. They also recently have expanded to include a full range of support services for their clients, including sales and marketing, exhibit tour operations support, and even custom exhibit design workshops.
Overview
Problem: Exhibits Development Group (EDG) is looking for insight into the usability of its website. They want to make their website more accessible to users and provide them with the information they need about exhibits, other services they offer, and the ability to contact them.
Results: Usability testing was conducted with 5 participants. From this data, the 4 highest priority pain point themes were highlighted and recommendations on how to improve the usability of these themes were given to the client.
Approach: Affinity Diagramming | Heuristic Analysis | Remote Usability Testing | Raw Data Collection & Synthesis | Findings and Recommendations Report
My Roles: Researcher, Interview Moderator, UX Designer
View The Research Journey
The Challenge.
EDG is looking for insight to see if its website works as intended and reflects its company’s goals.
Affinity Diagraming
As part of a team, the first thing we did was determine our goal and who the user is based on both information given to us by EDG and from viewing their site itself.
We used affinity diagraming on Figma to map out the organization and site goals, different types of users, and important tasks the site is intended to complete.
Goal Statement: The user group is clients and collaborators who want to view information about exhibits, see what services the organization offers, and contact the organization.
Heuristic Analysis
Next, I individually conducted a Heuristic Analysis to evaluate 5 key tasks that best reflected EDG’s overall website goals.
A severity ranking was given for each of the 5 usability categories based on how well they fit the 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design (Jakob Nielsen, nngroup.com)
Evaluation Plan & Test Script
Next as a team we created our evaluation plan based on each of our individual heuristic analysis and configured what the main research goals for our usability testing would be.
From here we developed our testing script.
Usability Testing
The next step was to conduct the usability testing based on the Evaluation Plan and Test Script developed above.
Methods: Think Aloud Testing
Participants were asked to talk through everything they were thinking and doing while using the website
Structure: 30 min sessions
Participants: 5 participants with varying degrees of experience with exhibits and exhibit websites
my role: moderator and observer
Data Synthesis
Raw data was organized in a spreadsheet and key insights were grouped based on similar themes.
I determined 4 main pain point themes that were the highest priority for the organization to correct.
Findings and Recommendations
All of my findings, based on research conducted, were complied into a Findings and Recommendations Report that was sent to the client. I highlighted 4 key pain points and delivered the insights and recommendations based on priority level (high-low).
Keywords and Font
Website Navigation
Filtering Exhibits
Contact Form
My goal was to deliver a report that anyone in the company could easily understand the findings and clearly follow the recommendations.
Conclusion
Exhibit Development Group’s website had great content hidden behind usability issues. I determined 4 main pain point themes that I felt were the highest priority and built recommendations around those themes. My findings and recommendations report was centered around bringing EDG’s content and site goals into focus and allowing their organization’s purpose to better shine.