Exhibits Development Group

Ignite and Promote Cultural Exchange

Overview

Exhibits Development Group (EDG) is an all-female owned organization based in Minnesota that mainly services traveling exhibits to different museums across the globe. They also provide services such as sales and marketing and exhibition submissions to allow new exhibits to be showcased.

EDG came to me to evaluate their website through usability testing to figure out user pain points and any areas of opportunity that the organization can improve on. With this method, I conducted a study by putting EDG’s website in front of users and developed a findings and recommendations report to provide to the stakeholders to view.

My role:

  • UX Researcher

Tools:

  • Google slides

  • Sketch

  • Pen and Paper

  • Recorder

  • Zoom

  • Sticky Notes

Methods:

  • Heuristic Analysis

  • Usability Testing

  • Affinity Diagramming

  • Wireframing

Deliverables:

  • Findings and Recommendations Report

Primary Users:

  • Museum curators

  • Artists

  • Clients

Research Discovery

Heuristic Analysis

Before proceeding to do any usability testing, I needed to review the website on my own to discover the user pain points and areas of opportunity that could be changed to improve navigation.

I used Jakob Nielson’s 10 usability heuristics to evaluate the severity of five tasks that EDG’s website could do. The five tasks were:

1: Book an exhibition

2: View all exhibitions that are available

3: Submit a new exhibit

4: Apply to work at EDG (careers)

5: Sell assets with CultureNut

Major Violated Findings:

  • When opening a link, there was no back button to provide users navigation back to EDG’s website.

  • Information was inconsistent throughout different pages of each exhibit.

  • The website text and information was too small and light to allow accessibility to users.

After the evaluation, it was concluded that all steps had violated specific heuristics however, they each had the potential to be improved. In order to do this, my group and I decided to run a think-aloud usability test with 6 users to unveil which part of the website could be changed.

Evaluation Plan and Synthesizing

After evaluating the website through heuristic analysis, our group gathered together and created an evaluation plan and moderator script for our usability test that we all conducted. Each group member tested two participants each on their own time and we all tested four participants together through a virtual, zoom meeting.

From our test, we complied and shared all of our information and synthesized our data through affinity diagramming. We grouped common themes together and quotes from users and came to conclusions of the pain points of EDG’s website.

Group Alpha’s Affinity Diagram

My group and I conducting our user interviews.

Conducting a usability test on my user.

What Did I Discover?

Findings and Recommendations

Findings:

The major common findings from testing EDG’s website were:

  • 6/6 users didn’t know what EDG’s website was for at first impression.

  • 6/6 users didn’t know what CultureNut was just by looking at it.

    • They were also confused at CultureNut’s affiliation with EDG as it wasn’t clear in EDG’s website that they were both sister companies.

  • 6/6 users said there was too much clicking for them to be directed back to the contact box at the bottom of the website.

  • 5/6 users reported EDG’s home page lacked visual representation that also didn’t reflect EDG’s business.

  • 4/6 users were confused at EDG’s use of dropbox files and wanted the information readily available on their site.

Recommendations:

The major recommendations for EDG’s website were:

1: Add more visual representation into their front page to catch user’s attention.

2: Better explain what EDG stands for and provides in the front page for users to quickly understand who they are.

3: Promote CultureNut in the front page so users can readily understand their services.

4: Change the text size and color to allow accessibility.

5: Change the layout of the contact box to minimize clicking.

6: Make files and information readily available for users to easily view.

Wireframes I created as examples for change

  • Visual Representation

    This wireframe shows how EDG can utilize their exhibition photos as visual representation in their home page.

  • Readily Available Information

    This wireframe shows how EDG can structure their exhibit web pages to incorporate readily available information.

  • Home Page Accessibility

    This wireframe shows how EDG can make their text darker and bigger for users to easily read and catch user’s attention.

Conclusion

What Next?

Next, I would suggest an A/B testing to discover what users would rather prefer with the color and size of the text. A lot of users commented on how small and faint the text was, so to discover more about what could be changed about this would be beneficial to the organization.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed conducting this usability test and I think it was at this point that I knew research was for me. I was nervous going into this study however, I felt really comfortable with the unknown and the discovery. Speaking to new people and conducting a study that I barely knew anything about really made me nervous but the beauty in it was that I felt more confident coming out of it. Doing this study for EDG was a great eye opener to what’s considered “good design”. I appreciated working for EDG and I wouldn’t mind doing more studies for EDG in the future to move their business forward.