Mint Artists Guild — A UX Website Review
Have you ever opened a web page with a specific task in mind just to end up frustrated because it’s a lot more complicated than it needs to be? Maybe you had to use the specific site so you just struggled through it. Or you decided to go somewhere else to do what you needed to.
RESEARCH
This week, we continued learning about different research methods. We covered heuristics, accessibility, and usability tests. At the start of my research, I did a heuristics evaluation on the website for Mint Artists Guild — a Detroit-based organization that equips and empowers young artists. The more time I spent looking around, the more I realized I was having a hard time navigating the website. I made sure to take some notes and screenshots so I could reference them later.
After completing my evaluation, a few things stood out to me:
It was extremely challenging to find a contact form (or any contact information for that matter).
There was inconsistency in language throughout the website.
Several linked items did not go where I expected.
After identifying a few problems, I developed some tasks for my usability tests to see if users would have the same challenges that I expected.
Spoiler alert: they did.
Task 1:
You want to support the artists at Mint Artists Guild by purchasing a couple pieces of art. Visit the Store and find two items to add to your cart, then view your cart.Task 2:
You want to provide supplies for Mint Artists Guild. Reach out to Mint Executive Director, Vickie Elmer to figure out how to do that.Task 3:
You are a young artist in Detroit and are trying to make plans for the summer. Apply to Mint’s Summer Creative Jobs.
I was curious to see if people would see the “Store” button that led to an empty page. If they would click on any of the four buttons that included the word “donate,” where only one would bring them to the page with the contact form. Or if they would scroll far enough down on the “Summer Creative Jobs” page to find the button to apply.
While learning about usability testing, we were advised to let people struggle. I tend to be a naturally helpful person, so I knew this would be a challenge both for the participants doing the usability tests and for me.
They struggled, I struggled, and at the end of it, all (most) of us laughed.
KEY FINDINGS
All five participants were able to complete Task 1, only one was able to complete Task 2, and none successfully completed Task 3.
It was very interesting to see how a lot of people have similar thought processes. In two of the three tasks participants were assigned with, I noticed a few trends:
In Task 2:
3/5 participants clicked “Donate Now” when prompted to reach out for more information on providing supplies.
3/5 participants found the Executive Director’s name and clicked on a link (that doesn’t work) in her bio.
In Task 3:
3/5 participants found the Summer Creative Jobs page but were not able to locate the “Apply Now” button.
To synthesize some of my research and communicate insights from the usability tests, I created a proto-persona and a storyboard.
Meet Joy!
While Joy isn’t real, this scenario is a little too accurate. Even though the usability test participants weren’t really donating supplies, several told me they probably would have either decided to just donate money or given up on donating completely.
CONCLUSION & NEXT STEPS
At the end of the day, I found that the biggest issue was poor information architecture. The usability tests showed that participants had a hard time navigating the website and some were confused by some of the language used.
A few solutions would be making contact information easily accessible, using consistent and standard language (i.e. “careers” instead of “work with us”), and ensuring that pages and external sites are linked correctly.
Next steps on the project will be additional testing to restructure the website, updating language to provide more clarity for users, and making sure links lead to the right places.