Museum Computer Network (MCN)
Usability Study - Moderated User Testing
Overview
Analyzing the MCN member portal’s usability to improve its navigation and communication experience
The aim of this usability study is to discover problem areas that MCN members might encounter while navigating through its members portal as well as uncover ways to improve the navigation system and optimize the user experience. A team of four user experience researchers conducted remote Moderated User Testing of MCN’s member portal. Based on that the researchers found four major problems. These problems have been consolidated and addressed with recommendations in the following.
My Role: Participant Recruitment, Moderated User Testing, Data Analyzation, Recommendations, Creating mockups, Final Report & Presentation
Team Members: Ariella Brown, Venera Zaripova, and Yuxin Huang
Duration: March to May 2022 (7 weeks)
The Museum Computer Network (MCN) is a volunteer-run, non-profit community for the gallery, library, archive, and museum professionals across North America. MCN’s mission is to empower museum professionals “to grow their digital capacity by connecting them to ideas, information, opportunities, proven practices and each other.”
MCN facilitates this by offering a yearly conference, as well as memberships with year-round benefits such as Special Interest Groups (SIGs), access to other MCN members, mentorship programs, and more.
“It shouldn't just be a conference where we get together for three days, once a year. We need to come up with a better system for people to be able to support each other throughout the year”
- Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli, MCN Senior Digital Strategist
Goals
Determine how MCN members:
01. Utilize the membership portal
02. Gather professional information
03. Connect with other MCN members
04. Navigate through their accounts
Design Process
May 2022
March 2022
2 weeks
1 week
1 week
1 week
Client Meeting
+
Research & Preparation
Recruitment
User Testing
Recommendations
+
Presentation
Recruiting Participants
Who is going to benefit from MCN portal's features?
Target Audience: MCN Members
In order to get the most accurate data, we decided to conduct our tests with current MCN members as they have access to all the content and resources available to them on the website.
A screening questionnaire was distributed to all MCN members via email. The goal of this questionnaire was to recruit people who are eligible to participate.
We determined the eligibility through the following criteria:
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the user must be an MCN member
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must be interested in participating
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must be available for testing within a predetermined time period
Participants Demographics
08
MCN members recruited
57%
Age between 18 to 35 years old
37%
Log in once a month or 6 months
55%
Prefer using the desktop version
Formating Tasks
Developing tasks that explore the functionality of MCN member's portal and groups
Scenario
You are hoping to transition to a job in digital imaging and looking to find out more about the field. You joined MCN to gather information and make contacts within digital imaging.
Task 1
Find a group related to the topic of digital imaging.
Task 2
Among the members of this group, find someone who has experience in “Exhibition Design” or “Digital Preservation”. Find their contact information.
Task 3
You are no longer interested in receiving notification alerts from this group, and you want to opt out of notifications from this group.
Task 4
You are no longer interested in this group, you want to unsubscribe from it.
Methodology
Remote Moderated User Testing
We examined the website through moderated remote user testing using Zoom, which allowed us to observe, record, and analyze the participants as they complete the tasks on the MCN portal.
In addition to the tasks, we also prepared a consent form, pre-test and post-test questionnaires to learn more about the demographics, and thoughts of the participants. These questionnaires included questions about the overall experience, features they like, and their network preferences.
Big Picture Findings
Analyzing data from user testing to determine major usability issues
100%
Had difficulty when searching for other MCN members by specific criteria.
Indirectly navigated to a SIG when searching for professional information.
Access their personal profile via a call-to-action on a SIG landing page.
87%
Expressed a preference for contacting other members via email.
75%
Expressed a desire for improving the functionality of individual SIG landing pages.
43%
Unsure if their profile was updated when attempting to change subscription preferences.
Problems and Recommendations
Recommendation 1: “Member Directory” Page
Add filters and the “Send a Message” function, improve the search functionality.
Problems
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Inability to narrow down members by their practice area, years in the sector, etc.
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The search bar does not return effective search results.
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Inability to contact a member directly from the MCN website.
“If I would look for a person with expertise in a particular area, I would try to guess from their job title…Although I think there might be a better way to do this!”
- Test Participant 3
Recommendations
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Add filters: Practice Area, Technology Knowledge Area, Organization Type, Years in Sector.
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Improve the Search bar functionality to return the keywords results.
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Add the “Send a Message” function to the member's profile.
Recommendation 2: “Special Interest Groups” Page
Merge content and use list to display SIGs.
Problems
-
SIGs have two different navigation paths and different pages for no particular reason.
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Text-heavy content on the SIG-Community page and repetitive visuals on the SIG-Members page.
“Groups do not “stand out” and it is hard to distinguish them from each other at a first glance...”
- Test Participant 7
“Oh, I did not realize that I can access SIGs from the Members tab!”
- Test Participant 6
Recommendations
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Merge the content of both pages: add SIGs description and MCN SIG logo. Separate secondary links such as “How to join a SIG?” and “Create a SIG” from the main content of the page.
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Change SIGs display from cards to list.
Recommendation 3: “Special Interest Groups” Page
Change layout, incorporate secondary navigation, add notifications feature.
Problems
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Users are under impression that there is no interesting activity in the group since all they see is a mission statement, group chair, and recent posts, and no hint is given that in order to access the resources, users need to subscribe.
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Inability to manage group subscriptions and notifications on the actual group page.
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Inability to search board posts by keywords.
“I am not sure how I should have guessed that to access the members' list I need to subscribe to SIG… I feel like there is something missing here!”
- Test Participant 4
Recommendations
-
Adjust the layout of the page: add secondary navigation with Discussion, Topics, People, and Media tabs. Rename “Mission Statement” into “About”.
Reveal the content for all MCN members – subscribed or unsubscribed to the group. -
Add the “Notifications On/Off” feature.
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Incorporate the search bar for posts, and add the “Sort” feature.
Recommendation 4: “Account” Page
Change the “Profile” layout, rename “Home” to “Community”, add the “Activity” feature tab, concentrate group subscriptions and notifications in one place.
Problems
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Landing on Account’s instructions page does not give an impression that this is a “member’s hub”. Profile’s “Edit” version does not give the users the impression that they have a public profile.
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The inability for users to track their activity in SIG groups in one place.
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SIGs subscriptions and notifications need to be managed in different locations.
“It just doesn’t feel like a social profile unless you see the “View Profile” button. Shouldn’t it be the other way round?”
- Test Participant 6
“Omg, what did I just do? I thought I am unsubscribing from notifications, not the group!
- Test Participant 2
Recommendations
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Land users on a public version of their profile, make the “Edit Profile” a secondary option. Change the secondary navigation style to reflect the selection tab. Use the horizontal layout to display the profile information in a space-efficient way. Change the “Home” tab name to “Community” and display all the useful membership links in a list.
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Add the “Activity” tab to allow users to track their group postings and replies. Display all the posts published by the user in different groups in one place.
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Concentrate SIG subscriptions and notifications management in “Settings” to allow the user to manage subscriptions and notifications from one place.
Add filters in the directory so the members can find the people they are looking for MCN members recruited
Make it mandatory for the members to provide at least one social media link or slack link to connect
Change the profile landing page to allow members to see what their profile looks like.
Client Presentation
The client was extremely impressed with the findings and recommendations. She was curious to know what the participants thought about Slack and would they prefer slack or like to receive a direct message. We even spoke about privacy and effective ways to let members connect. She mentioned that some of the problems we found are something they know of but are struggling to implement because of the limitations of the website builder they have used to build the website.
MCN has a limited budget for the website. So we realized during our conversation that these changes would take place in phases. Hence, Anna(client) asked us to name three recommendations we feel they should give priority to.
Conclusion
I learned the process of conducting moderated user testing and how one can observe and extract usability issues. Beyond that, I realized one needs to adapt quickly to the situations because no participant is going to be the same so to be able to get meaningful information one should be able to change accordingly. While presenting to the client we realized their limitations and I was glad we could suggest alternatives to the recommendations that were possible for them to implement within their limited period of time and wouldn't cost a lot of money.
Overall, it was a very good experience, I am glad the client liked the recommendation and look forward to seeing it getting implemented on their website.