Studio Brief 4 - User Testing

After completing my mock ups for the website and mobile. The next stage into seeing whether my target audience actually understands my concept is to test the website on them and to see if it's functionable without any guidance from me. To make the whole process easier, I made the mock ups clickable and some what interactive. Using the software called 'Justinmind' It allowed me to link up all the different stages of the mock ups and link them together so the user can click to other parts of the page giving the impression that the site is live.

This is a screen shot from the interface of 'Justinmind'. What you would essentially do is to create a hotspot button and link a certain area to another screen. For example placing a hotspot button over the submit feature, which will then link to the 'submiting page'.

Once the desktop mock ups where ready to be viewed by the user I began by writing down a series of questions I wanted to find out from their experiences.

The questions I asked where as follows:

1. Do you know what the site is for?
2. Do understand what it requires of you?
3. Do you know how to submit a message?
4. Is the user journey clear enough for you to understand?
5. Other feedback?

The users I tested on where similar in age, around 19 to 23 but mixed in music taste and backgrounds, therefore I was expecting different opinions due to these factors. The feedback I received was generally positive with short answers. It's hard gathering honest feedback with these kinds of 1 to 1 user testing as most people may feel bad if they say anything negative, therefore not expressing their true opinions. The main feedback I gather from the user testing sessions were as follows.

1. Do you know what the site is for?

"Yes, the navigation indicates what the website is for"
"If the navigation wasn't there then maybe not?"

2. Do understand what it requires of you?

"Yes, to type a positive message"
"The search bar is a good indication"
"I'm not sure, is it something to do with with the white bar?"

3. Do you know how to submit a message?

"Yes"
"The button is nicely placed"

4. Is the user journey clear enough for you to understand?

"Yes, it's very straight forward once you understand the concept"
"Yes, It's not overwhelming."
"The Help button is a nice touch if someone was confused"
"It's very easy to understand"

5. Other feedback?

"Have a notification, when the website changes"
"Round of the search bar"
"Make the word 'dear' larger, it looks a bit lost"
"I can tell what genre of music it is by the style you've used"


From this feedback I can conclude that there are areas in which I can rethink in terms of usability and functionality. I was extremely please to know that most of the users understood the concept and knew what to do when they got onto the site. Moving forward, I need to take on board the feedback and to use that to help tweak my designs to make the user journey more effortless.