Zen Habitat:
Overview
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Zen Habitat is a Home Organization business in San Francisco. They were redeveloping their website with the intention of making it more accessible and appealing to their ‘ideal clients’. During the pandemic, it was important that users could understand and access the services provided by Zen Habitat so that business could get ‘back to normal’ as soon as possible. Zen Habitat wanted to ensure that users could access their services quickly, easily and intuitively. I conducted Usability Tests and unstructured interviews to offer Zen Habitat a benchmark for usability, and also to better understand how users accessed areas of the website. I explored user pain points and areas for improvement as well as what was working well.
Process
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Planning
I proposed my research plan to the team. We decided to have bi-weekly check-ins to ensure we were on track with the project. I provided the team with 'postcard-style' updates following each day of research to make sure that everyone on the team was informed. This was also helpful, to catch any usability errors that we could easily fix during the time that I was conducting the research.
Target Audience - 'IDEAL CLIENT'
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I conducted stakeholder interviews to better understand the needs of Zen Habitat and how to best approach the project. Following these, I developed a persona based on Zen Habitat's 'ideal client'. This really helped to target recruitment and ensure that we always had their users at the center of the research.
Persona of Zen Habitat's 'ideal client'
Heuristic Evaluation
I explored the website to address any issues and what is working well.
There were a few minor things that could be changed to make the website fit with user mental models. The following recommendations were made:
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Increase the font size on the menu.
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Increase the font size on the ‘About’ page.
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Pictures to be labelled.
There were also many positives, that I identified through this piece of work. I felt these were also important to share with Zen Habitat to support them with the development of their website.
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I used Abby Covert Heuristics as they were a thorough and appropriate set of heuristics that covered the user interface as well as the functionality of the site.
https://abbycovert.com/ia-tools/ia-heuristics/
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Excerpt from heuristic review identifying opportunities for change
Usability TesTS
I decided that Usability Testing would be a great way to reveal the pain points and opportunities, as well as what is working well. I conducted a study with three tasks to measure speed of task completion, and also learn users thoughts and attitudes towards the website.
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Participants:
10 users (all genders)
Between 20-40 years of age
Single
Rent their property
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Recruitment:
Recruited via social media, using a screener to ensure we captured the right users.
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Interviews
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Following the Usability Test, we conducted an unstructured interview with each user. This was to further support the usability test, and to explore any further thoughts, feelings and opinions of the users.
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Example questions:
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How did you feel completing the tasks?
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What are your thoughts about the website?
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Is there anything you would change about the website?
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How did you feel about the contact form/booking process?
Surveys​
I wanted to know how satisfied users were with Zen Habitat's website/user interface. We asked them to complete a satisfaction survey following their experience using the site.
Analysis
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I analyzed the data from the satisfaction surveys using Google Forms.
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The usability test had three tasks. I measured task completion time of each task for each participant to ensure that the site was making sense and easy to use.
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I conducted a thematic analysis of the usability test/ interviews of our 10 participants.
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Collaboration and Ideation
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I collaborated with Zen Habitat's team throughout this project. Stakeholders were invited to observe sessions where appropriate. I fed back to the stakeholders each day with a short postcard-style email update to keep them up to date, and to also enable them to make any small changes to the site. Following the project, an executive summary was provided to outline the research findings.
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I co-facilitated a half-day team ideation and planning workshop that included the CEO and designers. I presented the research findings, and provided recommendations. We then discussed the recommendations and prioritized them.
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Findings
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Key Insights
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All participants valued a clear, easy to use, and intuitive site.
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Aesthetics were something 9 out of 10 users mentioned as being important to them, and they loved the Zen Habitat website's look.
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7 out of 10 users complimented the variety of services offered by Zen Habitat, as they felt that people all have different and sometimes very specific needs that should be met.
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Users wanted to be able to book an initial phone call with Zen Habitat directly though a calendar rather than using a booking form.
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Opportunities
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Consider enlarging the identified menu fonts to improve readability.
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Consider adding links to the pictures in order to fit with user mental models.
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Add a calendar feature to book a phone call direct from the website.
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Outcomes
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Following the launch of the new Zen Habitat website:
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There was an increase positive client feedback about the aesthetic of the website
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The site has attracted more of Zen Habitat's 'ideal client'
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The number of clients contacting Zen Habitat increased by 300% from March of the previous year (before the COVID19 pandemic and lockdown)
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Reflection and Learning
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It was really interesting to see what Zen Habitat's ideal clients found most important. The look of the site held utmost importance, and provided them with the motivation to then explore the site further. This shows how important it is to value aesthetics and UI of websites. It is always great to have in mind that the users of different services and products will also have varied expectations, and by speaking to them, it is possible for us to design for them, keeping the user at the center of our research and design.
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