About Client
Universe’s mission is to empower anyone to create the internet. Universe prides itself on being the first website builder designed specifically for the iPhone — it allows users to start, build, and publish on the go — right from the palm of their hand.
The Universe App is a is a no-code website builder that breaks down a lot of the traditional barriers that non-tech savvy users run into.
Project Overview
Universe’s main concern was around the “New User Experience” and barriers of entry to those unfamiliar with the product. We were brought on to do a usability evaluation study to discover problem areas that user may encounter while using the Universe app as well as uncover opportunities to help people achieve their goal and optimize user experience.
8 Weeks | Fall 2021
Universe
Usability Evaluation
Barley Bullard | Brook Shapiro | Hilda Fournier
We learned
People wanted to preview how their site will look before they publish it along with having an undo button
However
The current application does not cater to these needs
Therefore
On the grid editor, we added a preview option and an undo/redo button, as well as an on-demand guided onboarding process
See Recommendations
Analyzed the following metrics: number of sessions, page views, sequence of pages visited
Time Frame: 1 January 2022 - 5 October 2022
Analyzed real-time recordings, website page clicks, mouse movements, and scrolling patterns.
Time Frame: Last 30 days
We used Google Optimize to create our A/B Testing variations. It allows running some experiments that are aimed to help increase visitor conversion rates and overall visitor satisfaction.
The time frame is short to provide quantity and quality data for the website.
Hotjar could not track the Map and Zip Code Calendar, making it difficult to understand how users use and interact with them.
We used Zoom to record participants Retrospective Think Aloud (RTA) as they were asked to create their very own website. Each participant were asked to download Zoom on their iPhone prior to the test.
We used Excel to synthesize and analyze the data from each researcher findings and then sorted within a larger matrix, which facilitated the identification of the recommendations.
We used Figma to create prototypes and present our clients with our findings along with highlight reels, user journeys and recommendations to make it easy for them to understand. The client was impressed!
Throughout the user testing, majority of participants said they expected to see a preview of the site before it published but only gets to see it after publishing the site.
6/8 participants published without intending
Allow users to preview site
We took the feedback and added a preview button which allows users to see what their site would look like.
5/8 participants pressed “next” during the guided onboarding to move to the next topic
Majority of participants seek for clarity for tools that were not in the guided onboarding
Make the guided onboarding clearer
Have the guided onboarding option on the fly
Have more tutorial content in the guided onboarding
Majority of users made mistake
Majority of participants went back and forth between option within an action to decide which they preferred
4/8 participants looked for a way to reverse an action
Add Undo/Redo Button
The final stage of our project was presenting our findings and recommendations to Universe.
The feedback for this study we received from the Product Producer at Universe was very positive, he was impressed with our usability problem findings and recommendation and can not wait to implement them.
Learnings
Ultimately Universe’s flagship product, Universe for iOS, meets the goal of being an easy way to set up a website right from the palm of your hand but could be the best way to make a website if they are able to overcome some of the pain points in the “New User Experience”. The User Test received positive feedback from our participants.
Biggest Takeaway
However, the small and simple changes surfaced by the participants could make a big difference in improving the activation of new users leaving them delighted long-term champions of the product. While based on only eight participants, these results and recommendations reveal a lot about the way potential future users will interact and navigate Universe.
Next Step
For the next step, if I were to continue working on the project, I believe conducting another user test on our recommendation mockups will be the key to ensure it works and if the recommendation hit all the points user’s needs.
