Hindu Temple of Central Indiana: An Usability Testing Case Study
The Hindu Temple of Central Indiana (HTCI) is the first Hindu Temple inaugurated in the state of Indiana on February 5, 2006.
Disclaimer: I do not work for HTCI. This user testing was part of an academic project at Indiana University. My team and I reached out to the HTCI team, and they were kind enough to be our client and allow us to evaluate their website.
What does the HTCI website do?
HTCI website serves the spiritual needs of Central Indiana’s Hindu families and represents the diversity of Hindu faith and culture in the foreign land. The website provides various services, but the following are the key functions:
- Reservation for puja(prayer) and facility hall booking
- Broadcast upcoming temple events and community programs
- Registration to volunteer and donate to the temple
Why HTCI?
- The state of Indiana welcomes many Indian students every year. Also, it is home to many other Indian professionals and families, and hence HTCI is the place where these individuals can spiritually and religiously connect to their culture.
- The website of HTCI offers numerous services like puja, facility bookings, etc., but the current design does not effectively bring this website into the sight of its true end users.
- We chose HTCI so as to help users access all services and features of HTCI with a smooth experience and make it more accessible for new users and people from a different faith to experience the Hindu culture.
Usability Problems the Evaluation Addresses
After an initial discussion with the HTCI team, we got to know the following problems that they are facing, which we addressed through our evaluation:
- Most bookings for the services like puja(prayer) are made through phone calls rather than the website.
- Many users drop off between the task or intended actions on the website.
Research Goals
Our goal was to assess the performance of the HTCI website by employing qualitative and quantitative research methods to gather information regarding existing usability issues and make design recommendations for improving the user experience. Thus, we can describe the goals as follows:
- To increase the booking conversion rate on the website by identifying the pain points.
- To identify and resolve critical drop points in primary tasks’ user flows such as puja and hall booking.
Research Methods
We performed mixed methods research of both qualitative and quantitative research to obtain reliable results. The client shared the website’s analytics report to help us with our research.
Qualitative Research
- Competitive Analysis
To initiate the research, we examined competitors or analogous platforms and analyzed their UI, UX, user flow, and other functionalities. We selected the ISKON temple of Indianapolis and the Malibu Hindu Temple and performed a SWOT analysis to compare their highlights and limits.
The lack of prioritizing the features in HTCI’s website due to a poor visual hierarchy was the major insight from the SWOT analysis.
2. Heuristic Evaluation
Next, to measure the usability of UI, we performed Heuristic Evaluation through independent walkthroughs and reported issues. The issues were classified from ‘cosmetic’ to ‘critical’ based on Neilsen’s 10 heuristic principles.
3. Interview and Observation
We headed over to the HTCI temple over the weekend. We recruited 10 participants for interviews to empathize with the user and observe first-hand insights about their experience with the website.
“I booked the hall for Satyanarayana Puja today online, but called the temple administration to confirm.”- A temple visitor.
Quantitative Research
- System Usability Scale (SUS)
To back up our qualitative research with quantitative data, we asked the interview participants to fill out the System Usability Scale to rate their experience. The mean score obtained was 62.3, and the limits ranged from 58.06 to 66.43.
2. Task Analysis
Guerrilla Usability Testing says conducting a usability test involving 5 individuals can reveal up to 93% of the potential discoveries. Thus, we got 5 participants to perform 2 tasks to quantify the completion rate.
Task 1: To book a Ganesha Abhishekam at the temple for the next available slot.
Task 2: To book the upstairs dining hall area and the audio system for 12 hours.
8 out of 10 completed both tasks in 5 minutes and registered for this week’s events. There’s a 95% probability that the actual population completion rate could be between 47.94% and 95.41%, with a small chance of the rate being less than 50%.
Key Findings
1. Unintuitive User Flow
The website has many redundant nodes, and navigating back could be a hustle. The home page is cluttered with a broad menu and a non-logical arrangement of the information and tasks.
2. Confusing copy and Information Architecture
The website uses many jargons that are confusing for users who are new or from a different culture. The absence of search/sort/filter buttons makes the user manually scroll down through a long list of available options.
3. Inefficient Error Prevention
The system doesn’t prompt the user or highlight if the user enters the wrong data in the entry fields. Checkboxes allow opposite choices leading to avoidable errors.
4. Lack of Communication
The form pages don’t communicate important information properly. Many users reported that while booking, it is difficult to distinguish important information since a lot of irrelevant text is highlighted under the rules and notes section on every booking form page.
Also, the communication after the booking is through email. Thus, the user doesn’t get to check their history or previously done tasks or bookings.
Recommendations
1. Intuitive User Flow
The user flow must be made more intuitive, even for a new user, as shown below, in order to facilitate better navigation and foster a more logical flow.
2. Better Search and Jargon Explanation
Introducing filters and a sorting function will help better sort the numerous available search results. Also, jargon cannot be avoided because the majority of the community uses them. Thus, explaining the jargon through a small “i” icon or a different section for jargon will reduce the user’s cognitive load.
3. Highlight Error Fields to Prevent Errors
Making input fields case-sensitive and highlighting the particular field in the form which has the error will help in preventing errors. This will make sure the temple has the right details to contact the user back, as well as the user has the appropriate information and record of their service purchase.
4. Consistent Copy and Profile Section
Displaying and highlighting only the necessary details and maintaining consistency in the copywriting of all the website pages will help with the mental confusion of the users.
Adding an account section with tabs such as My Bookings and Profile Details would allow users to revisit previous bookings, save them, and alter contact and personal information. This feature will assist in personalizing the user’s experience with the website.
Next Steps
The evaluation methods helped us in identify usability issues of the HTCI website and recommend solutions that can resolve their drop-off and online booking issue while decreasing human intervention.
For Further Evaluation
For future scope, we can implement the following methods to evaluate the changes in the website:
- Hybrid Card Sorting
This technique will help prioritize the content and features by categorizing different elements under existing and new themes. - A/B Testing
Another design variant of the website can be used to test and compare with the existing version of the website. This determines which version has a greater impact and drives business metrics.
Thanks for reading!
It is always a joy to share your design stories here on Medium with like-minded people and designers. Thanks to my wonderful team, who worked on this project with me.
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