Jola Bolaji

Needs Assessment and Usability Evaluation

Roles: Project manager, user researcher

Team: Madeleine Filloux, Brian Kerg, Difei Zhang, Yuting Pu

Interaction Map

To get a better feel for users' experience when the arrived at foodnetwork.com, we used an interaction map to map the possible user flows. Upon completing the interaction map, we realized that the site was very organizationally complex. There was no easy for user to know where they were in the site. Some pages were essentially hidden with only a singular link connecting it to anything else on the site. Many pages were doubles and flows to these pages became circuitous. Armed with this knowledge, we set out next to conduct interviews to learn more about the users who navigated this site.

Interviews, Personas, Scenarios

We interviewed users in the target audience as described to us by the client in our initial meeting. We asked interviewees general questions about themselves to get a better idea of who they were, their cooking practices, sources of media consumption related to food, food website usage specifically, and general internet usage. We gained many insights during these interviews, including: a disconnect between Food Network TV and foodnetwork.com; a lack of use of the site log-in function; users multi-task while watching videos on the site; the site is used primarily for finding recipes; users like to search by ingredient; and, users employ a variety of recipe-tracking methods. Based on our interview we created sample user personas and scenarios to guide us. 

Surveys

Since we had a better insight on users, we used that information to craft a survey to send out to a larger audience (actual users on foodnetwork.com). We wanted to find out who was using the site, why and how they were using the site, how they interacted with the site, and how they felt about those interactions. After receiving hundreds of responses, we found that: site users were different from the target audience; the main navigation was incongruous with main content usage; the site Recipe Box feature was rarely used; and, confirming our problem statement, video viewing was low on the site - but also in general. 

Comparative Analysis

We also performed a comparative analysis of foodnetwork.com and similar sites. We compared them across recipes, videos, customization and organization/aesthetic. We found: most sites have the features; sites provide few incentives for users to create accounts; sites' videos rarely allow users to rate or comment them; and, most sites provide advanced search options that foodnetwork.com does not.

Heuristic Evaluation

Additionally, we performed a heuristic evaluation of foodnetwork.com utilizing Jakob Nielsen's Ten Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. Our key findings were: the site contained a significant amount of redundant content; the site's navigation was inconsistent; the site's organization could be improved; the site's aesthetics were distracting and haphazard; and, the site's video viewing experience could be improved.

Usability Study

The last of our usability methods for this project was usability testing. We recruited participants and had them attempt to perform tasks on foodnetwork.com. We observed them as we administered the test and took notes. From our usability testing we found: users were unfamiliar with - but enjoyed - the Recipe Box and Grocery List features; users were overall dissatisfied with the video viewing experience; users were confused by the Videos page navigation; and, users found the website overwhelming and difficult to navigate.