DODGE NATURE CENTER
Findings and Recommendation Report / Team Project / UX Research / 2023
The intent of this research report is to find key insights through usability testing in order to offer recommendations to improve the usability of the Dodge Nature Center website.
METHODS & TOOLS
What I learned:
Synthesizing research insights through affinity diagramming
Developed an understanding of how to write a script and scenario for remote-moderated usability testing
Gained experience writing research reports to clearly communicate findings and product recommendations.
Heuristic Analysis
Usability Testing
Think-Aloud Protocol
Evaluative Research
Affinity Diagramming
Remote-Moderated Research
Fulfill your connection with nature.
USER RESEARCH
The process of a heuristic analysis was the best initial course of action. We found that navigation and user flow throughout the site were misleading. Buttons unexpectedly returned users to the previous page, despite appearing to navigate to a new page. Our team also felt like the website didn’t represent a visual understanding of what Dodge offers. This was due to the website not showcasing real-life experiences.
RECOMMENDATION 1
After initial research, our team conducted usability tests with a total of five participants. Participants included parents, educators, donors, and individuals. Our team wrote a script with four scenarios. Each scenario had two to four tasks, along with follow-up questions. The tasks were inspired by the key tasks Dodge had listed in their brief: Field trip programming, finding relevant information for preschool, camp options, registering, donating money, and finding property maps for hiking. The tests were conducted on Zoom, with each session being 30 minutes.
After the usability tests, our team gathered our notes into a FigJam. Through affinity diagramming, we synthesized the notes by each participant and scenario. With this information, I individually chose five key findings that we thought were the most impactful.
RECOMMENDATION 2
RECOMMENDATION 3
RECOMMENDATION 4 & 5
APPENDIX & NEXT STEPS
For the next steps, I would like to continue adding more recommendations to the already listed ones. Important questions I would ask are: Are there better ways to improve the website other than the recommendations listed? What if the recommendations are only catered towards those five participants? Could those recommendations not be needed if more participants had done usability testing? I would also think about implementing the changes into a working prototype to see if the recommendations would ultimately improve the website.
