Overview


Client

Colorado Mountain School (CMS) is a collective of top-notch guides who are dedicated to giving fun and challenging adventures and classes through the mountains of Colorado.

Solution

My team completed comprehensive evaluative research both individually and in a group setting as well as interviewing 7 qualified participants to garner as much raw data as possible. We synthesized this data into categories with an affinity diagram to find common insights. Key takeaways and recommendations were then sent to the client through a report.

Problem

CMS tasked my team to conduct Usability Testing on their website to gain insights on how to improve the accessibility, usability and overall experience their customers have while visiting their site.

  • Role

    UX Researcher

  • Methods

    evaluative research

    heuristic analysis

    usability testing

    affinity diagramming

    findings & recommendations report

  • Tools

    Figma

    Google Docs & Slides

    Keynote

    Zoom

    Trello

  • Deliverables

    research goals,

    usability test review

    usability test script

    findings & recommendations report

Evaluating the Goals


Before my team could enter into the stage of planning for our usability tests we needed to establish what goals were important to CMS and how they intended their website to function. We also needed to determine who the CMS customer was and what kind of goals they had when visiting the CMS website.

  • Organization Goals

    ● Provide educational courses and experiences lead by AMGA certified guides

    ● Attract affluent customers that will refer CMS to other adventurous people

    ● Uphold and respect the beauty of their environment

    ● Strengthen and further the quality of life for all staff members

  • Website Goals

    ● Furthering the understanding of the brand

    Selling services and processing transactions with ease

    Customer service

  • User Goals

    Outdoorsy individuals with time and disposable income looking to learn a new skill to level-up in their existing passions of backcountry skiing, climbing, etc.

    Families and groups looking for pre-packaged beginner-friendly outings into the outdoors led by experienced and trustworthy guides.

    ● Outdoorsy individuals with time and disposable income who are looking to engage a top-tier mountain guide in a 1:1(or 2) ratio to achieve a technical ascent attempt.

With this applied knowledge we established what goals we wanted to accomplish with our testing

Sample Usability Tasks:
  • Go through entire process of signing up for a trip/class

  • Research different offerings of company

  • Gather a better understanding of what the company values

Usability Test Goals:
  • Gather user impressions of the website and company

  • Discover user ease of finding the correct experience for themselves and booking it

  • Identify areas for improvement for website

Research

Finding the Pain Points


With some tasks in mind my team set out to find initial pain points that the user might experience while testing. I applied five heuristic principles to one task, signing up for a course, to determine if there were any violations.

The heuristic violated most frequently was Clarity. There were inconsistencies between page layouts, buttons and labels. Hierarchical issues made relevant and important information, at times, difficult to conveniently find. Both of these could lead to user confusion while trying to complete the task. A few broken links and empty pages violated Availability and Accessibility. This could cause the user to lose trust on what they can click on.

Usability Testing


My team consolidated the information gathered through our individual heuristic analyses and the goals curated above to create an Evaluation Plan and a script.

 

Usability Testing Methodology

Method: Think Aloud Protocol

Duration: 30 minutes

Participants: 7 participants with varying degrees of expertise in outdoor activities

My Role: Moderator, Note-taker/Observer

Raw data collected from the interviews was collated into an affinity diagram. This allowed my team to draw connections between key insights from the participants.

Sections of affinity diagram

“I should do Colorado Mountain School to feel alive” — Participant 5

 Key Findings


The key takeaways that I found based off the testing insights were:

  • 5 out of 7 participants would use Colorado Mountain School

  • Many participants found it difficult to find succinct and scannable details about courses or experiences.

  • 4 out of 7 participants found it difficult to find information on who the guides were

  • Participants found the act of adding an item to the cart unintuitive.

I created a Findings and Recommendations Report synthesizing the key takeaways and more with my proposed suggestions. This was sent to the client.

 If you enjoyed learning about my work on the Colorado Mountain School, I would love to hear about it! Feel free to shoot me an email. If you are looking for your next User Experience hire, I would especially love to hear from you!