Ironhack Challenge 03 — Usability Evaluation and Site Redesign
Pre-work exercise for the UX/UI Lisbon Bootcamp April 2020
For my last challenge to complete the Ironhack pre-work, I was asked to conduct a usability evaluation (using Jakob Nielsen principles) and then, based on my users pain points, perform a site redesign. In order to do that, I had to create a scenario, in which a specific type of user would use an app to organize a trip to one of the seven wonders of the new millennium.
User Type and Research
Living in a hostel, I’ve decided to choose the Backpacker, age 18–38, traveling solo user type. This options was easier to match my audience reach and made it possible to conduct the interviews in person.
This is the proposed scenario by Ironhack:
“You’ve decided to finally go visit that wonder that has been sitting in your dreams for a long time now. You don’t have a long time to plan but also you don’t need it. You’ll be traveling in 6 months and are open to almost any possibility but have a budget constraint. You are price-cautious and prefer experiences where you have a chance to meet people and make acquaintances to enjoy the wonder together. You are not picky and you can accommodate the most affordable, adventurous, genuine experience.”
The chosen destination by our traveler is Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, to visit the Christ the Redeemer statue and much more. The departure flight will take place in the Airport of Lisbon (LIS) heading to the Galeão International Airport (GIG), in Rio. Brazilian currency is the Real (R$), and one euro = five reais in average. There is no need for a visa, and vaccination is not mandatory. However, vaccination against yellow fever, measles and rubella is recommended. To have comfortables walks in the carioca hot sun, is recommended light clothes, like t-shirts and shorts. One afternoon is enough to visit the statue.
Benchmarking
As previously stated, for the usability evaluation, my goal was to use Nielsen’s principles to compare three travelling related mobile apps — Kayak, Skyscanner and Tripadvisor.
In general, all the apps presented really good “visibility of system status”, “match between system and the real world” and “consistency and standards”. When the principle is “Aesthetic and minimalist design”, I would say that Tripadvisor is way behind Kayak and Skyscanner, mainly because it displays a lot of information, which also break the “flexibility and efficiency of use” rule.
In Kayak, one principle that stands out among the others is the “Recognition better than recall”. When you select a date for a trip, the same date is automatically selected if later on you want do book a hotel. For that and for being a really intuitive app, my choice was Kayak.
The three apps failed the “Error Prevention” principle in one situation. When choosing the airport in Rio de Janeiro, one of the options is the Santos Dumont Airport, that do not have international flights, only domestic flights. Instead of giving the user this information, the app offers a flight with a stop at the city of São Paulo, then taking another 45 minutes flight to Santos Dumont Airport. This makes the trip longer and more expensive.
Testing and insights
In the five-second test, all the three users noticed very easily that it was a travel app. In the other hand, also all of the users were unable to say which was the name of the app. Also, they all thought that the app could offer something more than just plane tickets. I believe that even do none of the users have ever used Kayak, they easily recognized the function of the app because it follows the conventions of how a travelling app should be.
Next, it was time for a more complete task. I asked the users to open the app, book the cheaper flight they could get and, after that, book a hostel bed, in a shared dorm, in the city center.
First pain point was changing the language in the app. Because it was logged with my Gmail account, the app was already in portuguese. But taking in consideration that is as traveling app, it should be possible to change the language. That really made it harder to complete the test, because I had to translate many informations. But, in general, it wasn’t hard for the users to filter the flight tickets prices. The second pain point is that when the user click in the first flight option, the app takes you to a screen with other prices and even other companies. To find the details of the flight you have to scroll down, and that was exactly what two users did instantly. The third user tried to get the ticket in other feature inside the app, which was really good because it helped me to find another pain point. The feature “View the cheapest dates” allows the user to select how many days to travel he has, and suggest many prices but not in chronological order. Last pain point happened when the users were trying to book the hostel bed. When trying to select the filter, they were first going to the filter button on the top of the page, that only lets you do a small set of changes. The filter button in the end of the page, that have more options, was hard for the users to see.
Redesign
I’ve decided to focus in three problems: making the flight details more visible, creating a filter for the “View the cheapest dates” feature, and replacing the filter button in the Hotels section. In general, my objective was to create a more minimalist design.
The image on the left is the original, on the right is the redesign. These screenshots were taken inside Sketch. The screen size is 1080 x 1920.
Learnings
It was a really challenging exercise. I felt that all the things that I learned during the pre-work were extremely important for the conclusion of this last challenge. The most curious part for me it was actually seeing the users having problems in front of me. It was a great exercise to remind me that I’m not the user of the product.
Want to learn more?
If you’d like to become an expert in UX Design, Design Thinking, UI Design, or another related design topic, then consider to take an online UX course from the Interaction Design Foundation. For example, Design Thinking, Become a UX Designer from Scratch, Conducting Usability Testing or User Research — Methods and Best Practices. Good luck on your learning journey!
Thanks for reading :)
