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.COM Usability Testing
17 Usability Tests
4 Days of Testing at 4 Locations
7 Users on New Design
5 Users on Existing Design
5 Users on TreeHouse.com
Goals: Explore demographics, perception of product, usability, task flows
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Questions | Tasks
Anatomy of the test
Basic demographic questions (internet usage, devices, email)
In your own words, describe this site.
How does [Code School] work?
What is the first thing you want to do on this site?
What are some features offered?
What stands out about the site?
How much this cost?
Find a course.
Is there any free instruction offered anywhere on the site?
Anything you want to learn more about before signing up?
Where do you go to sign up?
If you signed up, how much time could you spend on this?
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Questions | Tasks
Anatomy of the test
Sat down with volunteer for 15-20 minutes
Tester and Note Taker
Introduction, background, knowledge of Code School.
Let Users Freely interact with site.
Task based questions, Usability, Likes and Dislikes
Incentives to become paid user
Tested at Canvs, Starbucks, Credo, and Full Sail.
Developers, Entrepreneurs, Students learning Dev, and outside demographics
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Findings & Suggestions
No scroll Indication gave some users difficulty.
"I wouldn’t immediately have thought to scroll down."
-Researcher
"no visual indicator that it’s scrolling"
-Developer2
Suggestion: Provide scroll indicator
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Findings & Suggestions
Confusion around "Screencasts"
"I guessing screencasts might be seeing how layout works. "
-student
"When I started building something that interests me, that’s when I was really challenged. My knowledge went to a different level."
-Developer3, Paid CS user
Suggestion: call them "Projects" in navigation
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Findings & Suggestions
Confusion around "Teams"
"Teams would be who helped developed this website or something like that."
-Student
"I like to see the team, of who they are and what they have done."
-Entrepreneur MIT
Suggestion: call them "Groups" or "Businesses"
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Findings & Suggestions
Headline Copy Changes
"The ‘Zero commitment’ makes me feel like there’s a catch. Almost like theres a slightly negative wording for me."
-Designer/Entrep
"I like the idea of free courses, maybe text is too small."
-Researcher
Suggestion: copy changes
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Findings & Suggestions
Homepage CTA
"my brain interpreted it as ‘sign up’"
- Developer1
"Maybe if there was a search bar that asks, ‘what course are you looking for?’"
-Developer3, Paid CS user
Suggestion: copy changes
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Findings & Suggestions
Try before you buy
"I know it's interactive, but based on this..."
-Dev/Entrep/Student "
"The other thing that might be kind of cool is the gamification, I’m not getting the ‘make learning fun’ piece."
-Researcher
Suggestion: a way to play before you sign up
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Findings & Suggestions
Video CTA
"I kind of skipped through the learn more button because it doesn’t really get my attention, very little change I’d actually never watch the video."
-Designer, Entrep
"I really have no idea what it does, if the button is actually a play video or just an icon."
- Developer1
Suggestion: make video CTA look more like play btn
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Findings & Suggestions
"Paths" are confusing
"I don’t pay attention to the icons. I’ve seen this template many times in other companies."
-Entrep, MIT
"This view path might be confusing to me. What really is it?"
-Student
Suggestion: rethink "Path" or give users different ways to see courses
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Findings & Suggestions
Make navigation sticky
"It costs 29 a month I guess. Didn’t see free account on bottom or top. If the header was sticky I may have seen it."
-Designer/Entrep
"Now that I’m going back, I see one pricing, but you had tiered pricing, so it was really confusing. Seeing this here, and going to the pricing page and seeing 3 different boxes is kind of a disconnect to me."
-Designer, Entrep
Suggestion: rethink "Path" or give users different ways to see courses
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Findings & Suggestions
Provide testimonials
"it looks reasonable. I see there are a million students."
-Dev/Entrep/Student
"I don’t see any testimony from anyone. I would like to see testimonies."
-Entrep, MIT
Suggestion: include testimonials
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Findings & Suggestions
Credit card hesitation
"If the main page showed you didn’t need my credit card info, I would like it more. I wanted to not use it because I thought there was a catch."
-Designer, Entrep
Suggestion: include credit card copy sooner
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Findings & Suggestions
Confusion around what $29 includes.
"Individual 29 a month, don’t know what I get access to"
-Developer2
"What about weekly passes? 2 weeks out of the month I’m traveling, what if I didn’t have time."
-Developer3, Paid CS user
Suggestion: clearer and more copy around $29
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Findings & Suggestions
Highlight badges on linkedIn
"The only thing that would incentivize me is if I could connect with employers after. The badges don’t mean much, but it could lead to me to a job. "
-Designer, Entrep
"Looking at badges, asks what does it do, can I put it on LinkedIn. Putting it on LinkedIn is very important"
-Entrep, MIT
Suggestion: Highlight our badges on LinkedIn
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Findings & Suggestions
Confusion around Themeing
"I would have no idea what the graphic means. Am I on expedia.com or learning to code. almost irrelevant."
-Researcher
"I don’t know anything about jQ in terms of what that has to do with the map."
-Entrep, MIT
Suggestion: Clearer copy? Video? Party-pooper mode?
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Findings & Suggestions
Either don't call them "teaching assistants" or Hack Hands?
"You have teaching assistants so if you want help you can get it."
-Student
"If they make it easy to talk to a teacher and another place doesn’t, I’d probably pick them."
-Student
Suggestion: Hack Hands?
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Findings & Suggestions
Existing Site
"You have teaching assistants so if you want help you can get it."
-Student
"If they make it easy to talk to a teacher and another place doesn’t, I’d probably pick them."
-Student
Suggestion: Hack Hands?
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Findings & Suggestions
Treehouse
(Testimonial Page) "I’d probably check out some stories. Yeah, you can click on these people? Cool. [users action - Scrolls up and down testimonial page.] "Hmmm. Pretty much I’m just reading. Somebody’s story. That’s a real thing. People not being well versed in code. If you’re curious to people being successful with this, that’s good. I really did like the interactive map here.”
(Homepage CTA) “I like how it says 4 minutes."
(Testimonial Page) ”I like the way you guys do quotes. Goes to testimonial. So is this like the Bio of a guy? Oh ok.”
(Course Page) “If they make it easy to talk to a teacher and another place doesn’t, I’d probably pick them."
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Findings & Suggestions
Treehouse
(Pricing Page) "I would agree to 15, 20 bucks a month, maybe? You can try their trial courses.”
(Homepage) "CTA stands out a lot. The contrast between the green and then something that’s completely different that doesn’t match itself.”
(Homepage) “It antagonizes you to scroll down cuz it’s cut off."
[Facilitator] “How much time would you spend on this a week.”
[User] "They had a lot to offer, so depending on how much I wanted to learn, I’d figure out how much time. Probably just 1 hour a day, 3 days a week at most.”
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Findings & Suggestions
CodeSchool
(Courses Page) "These are like the different courses? you’re giving me a lot of information here, a lot of cute names. The website doesn’t make sense to me, most people know what they want to learn.”
(Courses Page) [user - Gets half way down the page, can’t find jQuery, goes to search, says] “It’s to grey. Im getting to the limit of my attention span.” [user - He couldn’t find it. He couldn’t search]
(Create a Free Account) "For me the blocker is, I don’t really know what i’m going to get with that. I have to go searching in advanced for that.”
(Homepage) “Ask me what I am at first, then branch my experience off of that.”
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Findings & Suggestions
CodeSchool
(jQuery Page) "Can anyone take it? do you need prerequisites? are there different levels?”
(Courses Page) “There’s a lot on here but i wouldn’t know where to start."
(Pricing Page) "I had an email that was a special offer. That was when I was going to try the subscription but I didn’t have the money.”
[Facilitator] “How much would someone pay a month for it?"
[User] "I don’t know. $10?”