UX / Usability Testing

Background

Cooper Hewitt is a design museum that belongs to the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum and research complex. As Cooper Hewitt embarks on redesigning its website, a team of 5 designers from the Center for Digital Experiences at Pratt were to evaluate and analyze usability problems for the current Cooper Hewitt website to give recommendations on the future improvements during the website redesign. 

The goal of this project was to evaluate the usability of the website based on specific tasks that are often perfomed by visitors, such as:

• Finding general information about the museum (visiting information, exhibitions currently on display, etc)
• Discovering contents created by the museum
• Navigating through the online collections of work offered by the museum

We aimed to find out if the website successfully inspired users to visit the museum, and whether the website clearly communicated the mission and vision of the museum to the visitors.

Defining the Scope and Target Users

After speaking with the stakeholder, the Digital Product Manager at Cooper Hewitt, we decided to focus the scope of the study on gaining insights into how users navigate the website as well as finding and understanding information about the museum and its offerings. We chose to test three key features of the museum’s website—the home page, the events page, and the collections page, focusing on museumgoers of various backgrounds with a general interest in art/design and/or in visiting museums.

Process Overview

Participant Recruitment

We recruited ten participants, who fall under the target audience. As our target audience are people who use go to Cooper Hewitt website, we focused on recruiting museumgoers with general interest in art/design and in visiting museums. To gain through insights, we recruited museumgoers from various backgrounds, including parents, art and design students, and young professionals residing in NYC. 

User Test

We conducted in-person user test with the 10 participants. After completing the pre-test questionnaire, each participant was given three tasks in regards to each of the three different pages of focus (home , events, and collections page) and was asked to “think aloud” their thought process while performing the three tasks. Each session ended with a post-test questionnaire, asking the users to reflect on the usability and impression of the website.

Qualitative Analysis

After completing each test session, evaluators documented their observations and findings on the spreadsheet below to consolidate the insights. We then analyzed the user behaviors/reactions that were observed frequently to draw out the usability problems.

Spreadsheet to consolidate the findings from the user test

Findings

Overview

• A majority of the participants had a positive impression of the website due to its use of vivid colors and imagery
• When it came to finding specific information on the website during the tasks, 8 out of 10 users found it rather difficult and unintuitive to navigate through the site. Some users mentioned, “[they] couldn’t find what [they] needed easily, and there was a lot of text to go through” as well as “[t]here was a lot of content on one page, some of it could be distracting”
• 70% of the users reported that their impressions of the museum were unaffected after using the website
  

Recommendations

Based on the findings from the user test, we came up with recommendations in each of the page. 

Home Page

Recommendation 1: Place the admission & ticket information at the top to accommodate users’ information needs

 As users explored the website, most people would initially look for visiting information, admission and events. In order to create a more seamless experience for the users, the admission information should be prioritized and be placed along with the visiting information on the top half of the website, so that visitors can access the information right away upon visiting the site.

" Online shop is not the first thing I want to see. I want to see admissions information first."

This will also solve a problem that was mentioned by some users who found that information was not grouped together well. By placing all relevant information close together, such as the hours and admission information, it will make it easier for the users to plan their visit in one go, instead of having to scan through the entire page to seek the necessary information.

Recommendation 2: Reduce visual overload on the home page by replacing some images with colored blocks

The visual design of the Cooper Hewitt website successfully gave positive overall impressions of the museum. However, it was perceived to be overwhelming for some visitors due to the heavy usage of imagery and lack of white space (lack of relief), which led to their visual overload and confusion in identifying the different categories of the website. One user mentioned regarding the homepage, it “just needs more white space to separate things”.

The minimum viable change to solve this problem would be to eliminate some images and replace them with colored blocks to emphasize the text and to avoid images from competing with the text. Also, this will add more contrast throughout the page, which will help highlight the various categories.

RECOMMENDATION 3:  Provide background information about the museum by adding  ‘About Us’ section on the home page 

Many users appreciated the visiting information being clearly visible in the first view on the top right corner. However, for the users who had never visited the museum, they could not tell what the Cooper Hewitt was about or how it is different from other art museums in the city. They mentioned they would also like to see information regarding the museum’s general background on the home page. 

To help users become familiar with Cooper Hewitt’s mission, we recommend adding a block dedicated to providing general information about the museum and its specialties (such as the interactive pen experience) on the home page. This will help new users get a better grasp of Cooper Hewitt and how it’s different from other museums. In addition, simply showing the institution’s full name with  “Smithsonian Design Museum” below the Cooper Hewitt logo at the top left can effectively communicate to first-time visitors both the background of the museum and the fact that it’s specifically a design, not just art, museum. 

Events Page

Recommendation 4: Include an overview of the museum’s events by adding a calendar at the top of the ‘Events & Talks’ page

When interacting with the ‘Events & Talks’ page, users were able to find the dates for the events, but expressed a desire for a calendar. One user clicked on the ‘Events & Talks’ page and was somewhat disoriented since she was “expecting to see a calendar.” The same user commented on how much she liked the header image for the event, “Designing Illusions,” but thought the event’s page was, overall,  “text-heavy.” 

We recommend adding a calendar to the top of the ‘Events & Talk’ page, ideally beneath the sort and filter options. The ‘Events & Talks’ page will still list all of the events being held at Cooper Hewitt, but with a calendar above. This will allow users to browse events by the day they occur, which is often a top priority when planning a visit. The calendar would provide a simplified overview that highlights the main purpose of the events page, which is to inform users of all the happenings at Cooper Hewitt.

Collections Page

Recommendation 5: Show more of the collection at once by directing the user straight to the search page

Part of the issue with Cooper Hewitt’s collection feature was that participants did not feel inspired enough to actually want to explore the museum’s collection. The current landing page displays images of three objects from Cooper Hewitt’s collection and a paragraph full of orange-colored links describing playful features of the collection. The landing page did not draw them in or inspire them to want to explore Cooper Hewitt’s diverse collection. Referring to the orange hyperlinks on the page, one participant found it distracting and difficult to make sense of what the links linked to. The landing page had too many hyperlinks, and as a result, 8 out of 10 participants completely ignored the paragraph of text and hyperlinks. They either went to the search bar at the top of the page or clicked the ‘Explore the Collection’ drop-down menu. 

To draw users in and to make the collections feature more appealing for them, we recommend that when users click on “Explore the Collection” in the navigation bar on the homepage, they should be taken to a dynamic and colorful page of images, showing the museum’s robust collection. The endless scroll feature will allow users to explore more of the museum’s collection freely—without having to rely on hyperlinks and the search bar to find what they are looking for. 

What's next?

We received very positive feedback from our client, the Digital Product Manager of Cooper Hewitt, after presenting our findings and recommendations. In the next project phase I would suggest conducting user test on our mockups based on our recommendations. Conducting user tests such as A/B test or talk-aloud will allow us to see whether our recommendations successfully solved the user's painpoints and improved the usability of the website. Based on the insight gained in the following user test, we will need to make further iterations.