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TEAM
Ana Dominique Salvosa Nakagomi
Loubaba Boury
Moses Wan
Pengzhou(Zoie) Huang
THE NORTH FACE
Usability Study
“Is the North Face mobile website user friendly?"
The goal of the usability study is to help college students get the most out of their shopping experience in the fastest and price effective way possible.
Throughout this report, we discovered situational awareness (4.0/4.0), support mental models (3.8/4.0), and support user goal principles (3.6/4.0) when using a mobile version of the same website.
Throughout the process, we found that the mobile experience was user friendly, and matched its desktop experience allowing users to successfully transition between the two modes, depending on whatever they like best.
This is also beneficial for the North Face as a retailer, by having good consistent designs on both modes, the reliability increases.
PERSONA
Name: Colleen
Occupation: College student
Location: Suburban area
Spending: less than $1,000 a month
She mainly uses her phone for online shopping. Colleen is getting ready for the new, upcoming school year, so she is shopping for a new outfit and gear. She is very active in sports, which lead her to search websites known for their outdoor gear, such as the North Face.
Goals
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She needs a quick way to browse through more affordable products
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She needs to stick to her budget and wants to make sure she gets good deals through student discounts
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She needs a quick and easy way to find out whether specific sizes (for clothes and gear) would fit her needs
Pain Points
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Navigation is not clear at times, some acronyms can be confusing
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The mobile website experience can be slow and laggy at times
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Klarna can be confusing to access; Apple Pay forces the user to automatically purchase the product
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The link for the backpack size guide does not work on mobile, which can lead to frustration for the user.
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Student discounts are not readily discoverable
Testing Planninng
Method of testing
Remote
Usertesting.com
Screener
18 - 25 Age
$0K - $60K Annual income
Gender Female
Employed part-time (<30 hours / week)
Full time student
Participants Metrics
Finally, we got 12 participants who lived in the US.
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Their ages range from 20 to 25, most of whom are IOS phone users.
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They have high web expertise.
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They majorly earn less than $19,999 a year.
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They shop for clothes online at least once a month.
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Their budget for outfits is $50 - $100.
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They used Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Tasks
8
3
After completing the checkout, in your own words, describe how you might benefit from using the North Face mobile website.[verbal response]
1
2
9
Without leaving the homepage, what are your initial impressions of the website? Explain your answer. [Verbal response]
Take as much time as you need to explore and scroll through this website. Describe what you are thinking about while looking through. Move on to the next task when you're ready. [Verbal response]
Are there features you wish the mobile website had? [verbal response]
7
How would you describe your check out experience on the North Face mobile website? Is purchasing products through the North Face’s mobile website more accessible? [Verbal response] [Rating: Scale 1-5]
Imagine you are shopping for an entire outfit and gear for the upcoming school year. Write down what items you would expect to find in the North Face. [Written response]
4
5
10
11
12
Now that you’ve identified the types of product you’d expect to find - add clothes you would buy to your cart and try to find discounts you can apply to. [Success: Yes, No]
How would you rate this task?(Scale 1-5). If you had any challenges, what were they? Was there anything you found easy? Speak out loud to explain your answers. [Verbal response]
6
Go through the checkout process and stop at the point where you have to go through the purchase (you can use a fake name, email, address, etc.) [Success: Yes, No]
As a student, do you feel like you get good value for your money's worth after purchasing items from The North Face? [verbal response] [Rating: Scale 1-5]
How likely are you to use The North Face website again? Explain your answer.
[verbal response] [Rating: Scale 1-5]
How likely are you to recommend The North Face website to others? Explain your answer. [verbal response] [Rating: Scale 1-5]
Testing Findings
Data Range
Complete Time (30s, 132s)
Complete Click (4 clicks, 15 clicks)
The overall shopping experience in the Mobile NTF is smooth. The common failures happened in the add to cart step, they didn’t check for the size guider.
The current mobile experience received a high rank from the respondents.
The Success
What are the users’ favorite parts of the current website?
The little video is cool. Good Aesthetics!
“I feel less distracted than the desktop, I always back to scroll in the desktop.”
Like the images, strong brand identity with a strong emphasis on nature and outdoor. Like the real social media page.
Likes the simple categorization of products in the hamburger menu.
Issues & Suggestions
CATEGORY 1
Student Discount Discoverability
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0 out of 9 test participants looked for the student discount.
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Banner up top that let users know that there is a discount for military, students, or health care workers
CATEGORY 2
Sizing Guide Discoverability
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Only 1 out of 9 test participants used the sizing guide
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Display sizing guide in the “Quick Shop View”
CATEGORY 3
Error Indication - Select Size
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3 out of 12 participants
tried adding product to cart but failed. Did not realize why it failed.
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BEFORE
AFTER
Show the error in the form of a pop up.
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BEFORE
CATEGORY 4
Content - Email Subscription
6 out of 12 participants unchecked the email subscription checkbox
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Reword the written content for email subscriptions
AFTER
Additional Features
Size Helper
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The size helper feature helps people aren’t necessarily sure what size might fit best.
Shopping online tends to be challenging just because not being able to see the actual product infront might make you hesitate and reduce the chance of actually adding it to the cart.
This feature can actually help increase sales, or increase the amount of users that add items to their carts.
Style Quiz
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AR Experience
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COMPARISON- The North Face @ Brazil
1 participant used the The North Face Brazil website to do the testing. From her perspective, The North Face @Brazil website performed well. This aroused our curiosity to dive in what The North Face Brazil does well?
The Brazilian website’s communication and notification system is more efficient.
They notify the user of an error, or important message they need to be aware of.
An example of this is when we had our users pick a product (shirt, pants, or shoes) and select a size. Some forget to select a size and went straight to pressing “add to cart”. We learned that having a noticeable pop up occur in front of a user, is more likely to catch their attention and alert them of what is happening.
Whereas on the American website, it’s not as noticeable especially if you aren’t paying attention, it’s hard to see what error you are performing and the website’s UI does not support the user either.
SUMMARY
Overall, The North Face mobile website is excellent and generally well-liked by users.
As one user says, “I would be proud . . . having this website pulled up . . . knowing that I would know where to go and how to refer my friends . . . to find out what they’re looking for.”
However, during our heuristic evaluation and tests, we discovered that there is a need for adjustments to messaging, visuals, and features in order to improve user experience.
We believe that the suggestions for improvement that we have come up with will increase user satisfaction, especially for people like college students.
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