Thomas Larsen

My Role:

I was the main researcher for several of the research methods implemented (analytics, existing research, and the design inventory). I assisted with instrument design and analysis for the usability testing.

Team

• Rachel Pena, User Experience Research Team Lead
• Thomas Larsen, User Experience Researcher
• Eric Martinez, User Experience Researcher & Information Architecture
• Laura Dahl, PhD, User Experience Researcher
• Spencer Buchanan, MFA, User Experience Researcher

Methods & Process

1. Design Inventory
2. Heat Maps and Analytics
3. Usability Testing
4. Existing Research & Competitive Analysis

1. Design Inventory

Went through hundreds of existing pages to find common layout and design themes throughout hundreds of subsites.

The above pages have several (but not all) of the following design elements:

• Top navigation only
• Left sub-navigation
• Hero Image
• Feature Text

2. Heat Maps and Analytics

Used mouse movement and scrolling heat maps (ClickTale) to learn how users were currently using the site:

• Users were usually coming to fulfill 1 primary purpose and ignored most other content.
• Users generally didn’t scroll past a certain point.

Presented the data to the designers, influencing the design of the templates.

Mouse movement (left) and Scrolling and screen height (right)

3. Competitive Analysis

Found existing research concerning the usage of icons:

• A/B Test Results
• Usability Testing
• Analytics

Learned that all but a few icons need a label.

4. Usability Testing

• Recruited participants
• Conducted tests
• Took notes
• Analyzed results and presented findings

Tested the following:

• Alternate navigation styles
• Media pages
• Articles
• Online manual pages
• Temple pages

Designs tested

Findings and Recommendations

KEY FINDINGS

1. Users come to our sites with a specific goal in mind, they don’t usually peruse the “fluff” content.
2. Their goal is usually to find what they need to fulfill Church duties.
3. Users of our sites don’t scroll often.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Include labels with icons as much as possible.
2. Perform Usability testing, A/B testing, and surveys to test all layouts, icons, and other designs.
3. Consider investing in gathering more existing research, as there was much more that the team was unable to analyze