Remote Usability Test Study

Designed a usability test for the site's participants. Understand how the site can be more interactive and exploratory.

Role: User Researcher | Tools: Figma/ Skype | Timeline: 2 Weeks

Project output: User Usability Test Research

Introduction

For this usability test project, I used a somewhat well-known site for podcasts. Castbox ( https://castbox.fm/?country=us ) was established in 2016. The complete Chinese and English programs include foreign language programs in Italian, Korean, Spanish or Portuguese, and the audio content is extensive.

In terms of use, in addition to the essential functions, the user can manually set the playback to stop automatically after a few minutes and also provide a sleep mode for relaxing and leisurely music, but there may be too much content, so it may occasionally get stuck, and there are many advertisements.

Motivation for choosing Castbox

I designed a usability test for the site's participants. As a result, some viewers with no experience with podcasting could intuitively use the site and discover programs and valuable features they were interested in. In addition to assuming that the site needs to be easier to navigate, I would like to understand how the site can be more interactive and exploratory.

The website has many programs, but the categories are not clear.
The website has a valuable function, but the value is not explained to the user and is not easy to find.
This website's popular purpose is unclear, as it provides a basis for ranking popular programs.

Methods - Remote Interview

Ideas for testing tasks

When I design tasks, I divide them into two categories. The first part is to ask about the situations used in daily life so that I can better understand users' thoughts. The second part is about the operational tasks of the website. There are three tasks in total, mainly used to observe the pain points encountered by users during operation.

Software and equipment

Planned interviews via skype and asked the participants to complete the task using a computer.

User Demographics

Most of the participants have education and work experience and are in the age range of 25~35. They mainly listen to music or listen to podcasts while commuting or studying.

Results and Insights

Most participants used Youtube, Spotify and Apple Music in the frequently used software section. In addition, they all prefer to use apps because it is very convenient to listen to music while going out or commuting.

Task 1: Today, you want to listen to topics related to English learning. Can you find them?

Observations
Most participants will use the search function on the right side of the head and directly type the keyword ''English'' to find the program. But when they browse the homepage, they will have difficulty finding English programs. Because there are only some classification labels on the home page, and some texts have icons next to them, which may confuse users and make mistakes for advertisements.

Problems

There is no obvious category on the home page.
The user can't find the program directly.
There is no basis for the sorting of programs on the home page.
The banner appears to be promoting the app rather than the hot show.

Task 2: Today, you want to listen to a podcast during your break, but you only want to listen for ten minutes. Can you find this function?

Observations

Most participants found this task challenging because the function of setting the time was behind the playback bar. Yet, the position of the playback bar was so hidden that the user could not immediately discover the setting function of the playback.

Problems

The player bar position is not at eye level.
The player bar has no partition or background.
The player bar has no quick function guide.
The play icon colour of the program page is not clear.

Task 3: You want to know the most popular programs, but you prefer sports. Can you find them?

Observations

Most participants can immediately find the Top show in the home page's header; after entering the page, they can see the drop-down menu with category options. After that, however, it is to select the most popular sports programs; the program ordering on the top show page can be confusing because the user has no way of knowing which program has been watched or updated information on time. So when looking for the most popular questions, users can't say.

Problems

It isn't easy to find information if the category selection uses the drop-down box.
The ranking of popular shows has no basis, so users can't know the reason.
The recommended shows on the homepage also do not show the number of viewers or popular tips.

Insights From Follow-Up Questions

Home Page

I found a need to optimize and improve the content layout on the home page. For example, it should directly display different types of programs to make users feel interested instead of using text classification. This makes it difficult for some users to search and not easy to find. In addition, although there is a magnifier icon in the head part, it is not very obvious. I suggest that it be displayed with different colours or types of search fields, which can be more prominent and more accessible for users to find.

Program page

I found several problems on the program page. The first is that after the program is clicked to play, the play bar is displayed at the bottom of the website, which is not a good user experience. Since the user is in the horizontal line of sight, it should be displayed directly in the middle of the program page. In addition, some navigation tools can be added for first-time users so that users can clearly understand the website's unique functions.

Top Show page

This page is easy to find in the user experience process, but there may be too many choices in the drop-down menu of the category, which will cause users to ignore some options when looking for program categories. On the other hand, sorting this page can add features like the number of viewers or the recommendation index. This will make the overall ranking more convincing.