DSW
Unmoderated Usability Testing
Project Background: Develop, recruit, and run, unmoderated, remote usability study on DSW.com, an American footwear retail company (Designer Brands parent company). Evaluate if the current interface is in line with customer’s expectations of purchasing shoes, identifying sales, and tracking an order.
Action: Gathered data through unmoderated, remote usability tests as the research method. Five usability tests were conducted to probe users’ ability to complete simple tasks within the site, their pain-points, and the ease in which information was located within the site. These sessions were captured through “Validately” analyzed to identify opportunities to improve the DSW user interface.
Participants: Five participants performed a series of tasks on dsw.com. The composition of participants was 3 men and 2 women between the ages of 25 and 40.
Results: Data was analsyzed and synthesized and broken down into three levels of recommendations.
Lessons Learned:
When developing unmoderated usability tests, it’s important to ensure the questions are phrased properly to be easily interpreted, but not leading in any way.
Unmoderated tests are not as easy to obtain additional feedback as you would if you were directly observing the individual. You have one shot to capture as much information as possible.
Tasks & Goals
Task 1
Imagine you are going on vacation next month and need new shoes to wear in warm weather. Select three pairs to add to your bag and add a promo code to your order.
Goal: To understand how users search for items and if they are able to use filters to find shoes for a particular occasion. Also to see if users know how to find and add a promo code for the order.
Task 2
Imagine you want to order a pair of shoes, but you don't have a specific type in mind. You also don't have much to spend so you decide to browse shoes on sale. Browse the clearance section for shoes that are 30-50% off.
Goal: To see if users are able to search and find shoes that are on sale.
Task 3
Imagine you wanted to check the status of your most recent order. How would you do this?
Goal: To see if users are able to identify how to track an order from the site.
Insights
Wins
Participants were able to utilize the filters both on the top navigation as well as the side filter bar to help them make a selection.
“The site was easy to navigate and I liked the number of filters.” ~Participant 1
Areas of Improvement
Most participants assumed you could only check the status of an order when signed into an account. Clearance ranges were not obvious to users.
T2 - “WOW is that really where that's at? There has got to be a better way” ~Participant 5
T3 - “I was expecting the % off on the side with the other filters.” ~Participant 4
Recommendations
Severe
Make the order tracker more prominent within the site. Make this action available when someone clicks on my orders - allow the option to check without registering an account.
Moderate
Include the percent-discount ranges to the filter sidebar on the left of the screen when searching clearance.
Low
Display clearer message of what items qualify for the promo codes.