BounceTribe Website Evaluation and Usability Testing
Usability Review / Scenarios / Usability Testing / Data Synthesis
BounceTribe allows aspiring musicians and professional mentors to connect through uploading in-progress projects and providing project feedback.
The Challenge
Client's site goals:
- Connect aspiring musicians to professionals.
- Enable professionals to teach aspiring musicians.
- Allow musicians to critique each other on their work.
BounceTribe approached the UX team to gain feedback on the usability of their website during its development stage.
The Approach: Usability Review
It was determined that in order for the site to be successful, each member must know how to complete basic tasks: finding/adding friends, uploading projects, and communicate through feedback/messaging. This insight determined the evaluation goals for the usability testing process.
EVALUATION goals:
- Determine whether users are able to perform necessary tasks associated with the website (adding friends, uploading projects, communication).
- Verify whether the current navigation model is or isn't working.
- Rate the overall learnability and understanding of the site concept and gather insight on user's interpretation of the language/jargon on the website
The first step was to conduct a usability review, assessing the site's pages and overall functionality. Through this examination, the team noticed a few key issues that might cause confusion or frustration among BounceTribe users.
In order to determine whether the site's current functionality was in alignment with the client's goals, the UX team decided to take a closer look at what issues would directly impede the success of the client's site goals.
A storyboard uncovered what issues might arise throughout a site member's process of connecting with musicians, sharing music and communicating with others.
Scenarios and Usability testing
Usability testing was conducted in order to observe what components of the website were most troublesome for users. The team wrote a usability test script that consisted of six tasks and scenarios that were to be completed by participants in remote and lab test settings. Participants were recruited by team members and asked to conduct one-on-one research evaluations. Evaluations included participant observation of a website walkthrough and think aloud protocol as participants completed the tasks and scenarios. Participants were also asked questions regarding their understanding of the site’s language and goals.
Participants:
- 8 remote tests, 3 lab tests (11 usability tests total), male and female, 20s-40s
- Music background ranged from none to semi-professional
- Music platforms currently used among participants include: SoundCloud, Bandcamp, LastFM, Spotify, iTunes and Pandora
Observations on the level of participant frustration throughout task completion, statements and other cues were factored into the severity of the usability issues.
Data synthesis
After remote and lab usability tests were conducted by each of the team members, research notes were transcribed into a common document. Using Trello as a design tool, the data was grouped, organized and sorted to highlight patterns of usability issues and see what areas of the site caused the most pain points among participants.
To meet the client's goals of the site and maximize musician connections on BounceTribe, members must be able to search for/find other musicians in an effective and efficient way. The process of searching for and adding friends on the current website prototype was confusing for almost all of the participants who tested the site. Participants hit road blocks when looking for friends and thought the current method was difficult to understand.
It's also important for BounceTribe members to be able to upload projects easily and communicate with each other through various points of contact. Participants didn't have many issues uploading projects, but they could not grasp the methods of communication. They did not know the difference between ideas and likes and could not figure out how to send private messages.
Usability findings
Top usability issues were determined by the amount of difficulty and frustration the participants experienced when completing the scenarios during the usability tests.
- Unclear navigation made finding and adding friends difficult.
- Lack of visibility and feedback on the project pages confused participants when they tried to critique members' work. Users were unsure if their comments were posted.
- Participants faced an extreme mental model mismatch when trying to send direct/private messages to other members.
Design recommendations
Moving forward, it's crucial for the BounceTribe development team to revisit functionality of the feedback segment on individual project pages. Revisions should include clear differentiation between "ideas" and "notes", and a clear indication that a member's feedback has been posted. BounceTribe development team should reconsider the navigation structure to make the process of searching for/adding friends more intuitive. Additionally, separating the messaging section from the member profile would help users access direct messages more conveniently.