May 14, 2021
Ironhack’s Prework: Usability Evaluation and App Redesign_Challenge 3
Hi! Today’s post is about the third challenge of the prework of Ironhack’s UX Bootcamp. For this task I had to conduct Usability Heuristics evaluation with Nielsen’s Principles for three traveling apps and choose one that performs better for a specific type of users that I identified as users. Then I performed usability testing in order to find areas with potential of improvement in order to help people traveling easier around the world.
For whom do I design?
Firstly I had to choose for whom I design and their destination. The users are a young couple (age 20–40), who decided to give themselves this summer some relaxing moments in Sicily. They have enough money to spend and their priority is to have everything organized before they get to their destination.
Usability Heuristics evaluation with Nielsen’s Principles
As there are plenty of travelling apps, for this task I had to conduct Usability Heuristics evaluation with Nielsen’s Principles and choose the one that would perform better for this couple. This was Skyscanner. I found it was very efficient and easy in the booking process, no errors occurred and it had the option to put all your reservations in one trip. In this way everything was organised and the user can have an overview of their flights, hotels and rented cars for this specific trip.
Usability Tests
I contacted usability tests with 3 couples. With the first 2 we were in the same space whereas with the third we did it via zoom. Firstly I showed them the home screen for 5 seconds in order to conduct a 5 seconds test. I asked them if they could recognise what it is and what would they do as a next step, if they wanted to book tickets. There was already some confusion in the beginning as no one could recognize that it was the Skyscanner homepage as there was no logo or salutation. The second part of confusion is the big map with the Covid Situation and regulation in each area of the world. So 2 of the users thought that in order to get their tickets instead of going to search, which is what they had to do, they clicked on the map thinking that this will show them flying options to this destination. After this past I aked the users to do some tasks:
- Book their flights
- Book their hotel
- Rent a car
- Optionally they could create a travel packet where they could have all their bookings organised under this part
Findings and Pain points
The overall feeling of the app was good. The users found it well-organised and simple to use. Most of them loved the COVID-19 information map and the graphics, which they found inklusiv. However, there were some difficulties that made navigation more difficult. The biggest problem that all the users had was the visibility of specific functions. For instance, they found it difficult to recognize the filters when searching for a hotel or to rent a car. Moreover, when searching for the details of a hotel all of them couldn#t find the location with the first try. Another problem that they had was that in order to buy their tickets, book their hotels or rent their cars they had to redirect to another site.
App redesign
Considering that the overall function of the app was positive I decided to intervene with some improvements that make the navigation through the app easier. Moreover, I added a buy option so that the users could book what they wanted directly through the app. You can see these changes in the pictures of this post or you can directly check my prototypes here.
What I learned?
The first thing I noticed while conducting the usability tests was that there might be many things that I overlooked when I did the Usability Heuristics evaluation. A good example of this is how much freedom the app offers or the visibility of system status. So, here’s the first learning: to be more analytical when doing such an evaluation and ideally doing it with more people together. More people means more eyes.
The second learning was that one gets more insights when they are in the same space with the users. Usability tests via zoom is a good alternative but the amount of information that one can gather is significantly less.
During this exercise I loved observing people interacting with the app and listening to their feelings and pains. I am excited about the possibility of bringing solutions to their problems! WIth these thoughts I can’t wait for the bootcamp to start next Tuesday!
