Usability Testing
Does this work for our customers?
Problem
How do we know what we’ve designed actually works for our customers? I worked with the founders of a nutrition app which was aimed at people with various dietary needs such as gluten intolerance or vegans, to understand if the nutrition app MVP worked for the target audience.
My Approach
Understand the app’s goals, first I wanted an understanding from the app’s founders about their intention and goals for the app. How did they want to serve the needs of their chosen audience? What was their vision of success for the app? What key tasks did they expect people to be able to do within the app? What other elements of the app were they interested in gaining feedback on and why?
Research approach, I recruited people from various customer segments on a spectrum of dietary needs. Participants included people who had strict dietary intolerances to people who were vegetarian and interested in nutrition in general. I also recruited people who were nutritional advisors to gain their feedback.
I contacted people via social media, nutrition forums and university student notice boards. I interviewed people in person, these sessions where a mix of interviews, usability testing and a questionnaire.
For the interviews, I asked people about their general mindset and approach to nutrition. Where did they shop and why? What apps were they currently using? Why were these apps useful? Where did they go for nutrition advice? What was important to them in terms of nutrition?
For the usability testing, I gave people tasks and scenarios within the usability testing part of the session. This included their first impressions after exploring the app at will for a few minutes. Then more structured tasks based on the critical feedback I understood that the app founders were looking for.
Questionnaire, At the end of the usability activities I gave people a questionnaire on their experience of using the app.
Analysis of task success, I created a table for each app activity showing how many users had completed the task successfully and I graded any problems they encountered from low to critical. I provided quotes from participants which described problems they had encountered and user sentiment. This provided a clear review of the key tasks that the app founders wanted people to achieve within the app.
Wider understanding of the customer’s world, For the interview section I conducted theme analysis which gave an understanding of how people were thinking about their diet, how they shopped, what they looked for, what apps they were currently using and why. This gave the app founders a broader understanding of their target customers.
Outcome
A usability review of key tasks users should be able to complete within the nutrition app.
A graded list of usability problems from low to critical, so the founders could prioritise improvements.
An understanding of how various features landed with potential customers. What did they find interesting? What was not appealing?
Wider understanding of the customer’s approach to nutrition and shopping behaviours. This information would enable the founders to refine the app and iterate with insights from target audience interviews.