Usability Testing
Shopping for Clothes Online Using PacSun
and Macy’s
Kent Devaney, Samantha Marshall, and Abby Hillock
Overview
After gaining his consent we asked Erik Petersen to perform the
task of buying something through the medium of online shopping.
The two websites we chose were Macy’s and PacSun. We made
him start at the Google homepage and asked him to find his way to
both websites to start the task given to him.
Background
Macy’s
Macy’s is a store that has a wide variety of products ranging from
clothing to furniture. Macy’s has a website that provides an online
alternative to going in to the store and shopping in person. A
customer has the option to create an account or shop as a guest to
access products that may not necessarily be located in the local
store. Macy’s has a bigger selection than PacSun in all sense.
They have perfume, cologne, bathroom accessories, bedroom
accessories, jewelry, clothes, etc. This store targets young adults
and an older generation. A child isn’t going to be looking for his or
her bedroom accessories, but on the other hand their parents and
young adults will be looking for these items.
PacSun
PacSun is another online alternative for shopping. The online
website basically has everything in the store plus more. You don’t
need to create an account to shop on this online website. All you
have to do is find something you are looking for and follow the
steps to order it. PacSun targets children, teens, and younger
adults. For example, a 70-year-old man wouldn’t go to PacSun to
shop for new clothes. This is a newer fresher style of clothing
brand. I think it is important to recognize this because we wouldn’t
be doing a usability test on an older subject. That would be a waste
of time and effort, and both are an important to the process.
Process The two sites we chose to do were Macy’s and PacSun. Both of
these sites offer an online component to shopping. We chose to do
a usability test on these because as younger adults we like to do a
lot of shopping. So, we were interested in seeing how these two
online shopping website compared to each other, and on top of that
how well they did in general in the eyes of a user.
Demographic
Macy’s has an older demographic than PacSun. Macy’s sells highend jewelry, bath towels, bedroom accessories, perfume, cologne
etc. All these items are more expensive items that you don’t really
need unless you have a home that you bought. Teenagers wouldn’t
need to buy these things because they can’t afford it, and also they
don’t need it. PacSun is for a younger demographic. They sell
stylish clothes for teenagers, shoes, long boards, etc. Older people
won’t buy these brands of clothes because they are meant for the
younger demographic. We were interested in seeing how a certain
subject would use a website targeting an older generation
compared to a website targeting a younger generation. With this
information on the demographic of the two stores we decided to
choose a college student for two reasons: We had a limited number
of options for users, and we thought it would be good to choose
someone that was considered to be part of both demographics. A
young adult aka college student buys perfume/cologne, bathroom
and bedroom accessories, and of course clothes that come from
Macy’s. They also fit the style of clothes that PacSun offers.
Length of usability test
The time it took for each usability test was about 30-45 minutes for
each website performing the same task. Both took relatively the
same amount of time.
Method – Steve Krug’s Usability Findings
Welcome
The first thing we did with Erik was welcome him and introduce
ourselves. We let him know that we are testing the usability of the site
and not to worry about not knowing how to do something on the
website if that presents him self.
Questions
The next thing we did was asked questions to get know him as a user
better. We learned that he is 24 years old, he loves online games, he
has a job as a UI for a computer science class, and he somewhat
likes to do shopping. But, when he does shop he does his shopping
online. He usually uses “thinkgeek” or “amazon”. He shops for
electronics, games, or game merchandise.
Home Page Tour
Then we took him on a “tour of the home page” so to speak. When
they arrived on the home page we asked for them to describe in
words what they were seeing. He said both sites had a similar layout
on their home pages. They had a “bag” on the top right corner that
holds the items you are interested in purchasing. They also had
specific tabs of different options to click on. After this exercise we sent
him on his way to perform the task of buying something from the
online store.
Tasks
We told Erik that he needed to buy something from each site. We told
him to find something that interested him. On PacSun he found a shirt
he wanted to buy, and on Macy’s he found a piece of jewelry he would
maybe have bought for his girlfriend if he was actually shopping.
Probing
This part of the usability test is where we asked Erik to explain his
experience of using the site. We will go into greater detail of his
thoughts on the site into our design recommendations and conclusion
part of the assignment.
Wrapping Up
We then wrapped up the usability test by thanking Erik for helping out
with our study by telling him his contribution was greatly appreciated.
PacSun - Findings
1.
This is where we took Erik on the
home page tour. He explained how
he saw the title PacSun and how
there were six tabs that have a drop
down menu when you scroll over
them. He scrolled over the men’s
tab because our subject was a
man.
2. He saw that if he scrolled over
the tabs a drop-down menu
appeared. The only tabs he was
interested in were the one that
says, “men’s” and the one that
says, “discounts”. He scrolled
over the “men’s” tab and saw a
ton of options. He clicked on tshirts.
3. He saw there were sixteen
different pages he could scroll
through. He made a comment
saying, “Wow you wouldn’t get
this many options in a store”. He
scrolled through the first page
and just clicked on one of the
shirts that he liked.
4.
He clicked on this shirt because it
was something that he might have
bought on the site as a user. He
recognizes the variety of options on
this page.
5.
He scrolled over the small
image to the right of the shirt
He told us of his excitement for
this feature because he could
see what was on the front
pocket with greater detail. First,
he saw he had to choose a
color for the t-shirt. Second, he
chose the size, which was a
medium. Third, he said how
many he wanted to order. After
all of that he clicked the orange
box that says, “Add to bag”.
6.
After pressing add to bag he went to
the top right of the page and clicked on
the bag. He commented on how he
liked that every item he wants goes to
this bad and he could continue to shop
if he wanted. But, since he already
completed his task for this usability
test he clicked on the orange box that
says, “proceed to checkout”.
7.
After he got to this page he said,
“Oh, this page is just like clicking
on my bag”. This kind of shows a
familiarity, and also a
redundancy. He clicked on the
orange box that says, “Proceed
to checkout”.
8.
He didn’t see the need to sign up
so he clicked the “guest checkout”
button.
9.
On this page he typed in all of his
shipping information. He didn’t really
need to think at all to know what to do
for this page.
10.
The second step was as
straightforward as the first step. All he
said he needed to do was pull out his
card and fill out all of the information
on his card. He wasn’t actually buying
the t-shirt so he put in random things.
11.
He couldn’t get to step three because
he actually needed real card
information. So we stopped him at this
point. He performed the task given to
him with almost no difficulty.
Usability Test Video Link for PacSun (No Audio)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcLmVZa0IUI&spfreload=10 Message%3A JSON Parse error%3A Unexpected EOF
(url%3A https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv=mcLmVZa0IUI)
Macy’s - Findings
1.
He scanned the homepage and
decided to pick the tab that said
“Jewelry”. He wanted to go on this
site to act like he was buying jewelry
for his girlfriend.
2.
After clicking on the jewelry tab he
saw the lowest prices ad in the
above image, and decided to look
for discounts. There was an area
that said, “shop lowest prices of the
season” so this is what he decided
to click on. He found this tab almost
instantly.
3.
After clicking on the lowest
shopping of the season it brought
him to this page. There was
another selection of jewelry, but
this time it was all their jewelry that
were at cheaper prices for people
that are on a tighter budget. He
clicked on the ring that had the
blue jewel on it.
4.
It then brought him to another page
that focused just on the ring he
clicked on. On this page it had the
price, the different sizes for the ring,
and how many rings you wanted to
get. After filling this information out he
proceeded to click on add to bag.
5.
After he clicked on the “add to bag”
the top right corner showed “My
Bag: 1”, which signified that it was
nested in this tab. He clicked on
the tab and it brought up this page.
It showed what was in his bag and
gave him the option to continue to
checkout, which is shown by the
red box that says “checkout”.
6.
It brought him to this page when he
clicked checkout. For some reason
when he clicked on checkout again,
it kept on refreshing the page and
not accomplishing anything. He
continued to click on checkout until
he got frustrated and gave up on
buying the ring. He didn’t even get to
the page to order the ring.
Design Recommendations and Findings
“What aspects on the home page led you to choosing the
particular item you bought? Did you like those aspects and
would you change them?”
For finding an item I usually look at the tabs at the top or key words
on the site. For Macy’s, I immediately noticed the word jewelry on
the main page, which made me think of my girlfriend so I clicked on
it. The home page itself looked cluttered. It was hard to choose
what I wanted to click on first so I would make it have less content.
For PacSun, I needed some new shirts and the drop down menu
had exactly what I needed so I clicked. I felt it was very
straightforward in finding what I wanted. Each item was ordered
well within the drop down menu and I could find what I wanted
quickly. The only complaint I had was that there wasn’t a lot of
color on the site and it looked very bland.
“We saw that you had some difficulties with the checkout
process at Macy’s. What happened there?”
I kept clicking on the checkout button but it took me back to my
cart each time. I know it had something to do with the pickup from
store option but I was unable to remove it, no matter what I tried. It
was very frustrating and made me give up on attempting to buy the
item. If the process were smoother I would have gone ahead with
my purchase.
“Which website did you prefer and why?”
I preferred PacSun to Macy’s mainly because of the design and
layout of the site. Everything was cleaner, crisper, and much
easier to find for PacSun and I spent less time attempting to
navigate the site. Also, I did not have a problem with PacSun’s
checkout like I did with Macy’s and it was a lot clearer in showing
me what I was supposed to do.
Conclusion
Once again, for this usability test we had Erik Petersen perform the
task of buying something on an online shopping website. We chose
the two website for him, which were PacSun and Macy’s.
We noticed that Erik had a much easier time navigating the
PacSun site. He immediately hovered his mouse over the
navigation bar at the top and quickly found a shirt to his
liking. There was not a lot of confusion or hesitation for this
site. The checkout process was much the same in that he quickly
entered his information in as a guest account and if he were to
have bought the shirt it would have been simple and easy in that he
would enter his card information and then clicked purchase.
Erik had a lot more hesitation on the Macy’s website. When he first
arrived at the home page he hesitated and then finally chose the
jewelry page. Not knowing what to pick but realizing he was on a
budget, he went with the cheaper jewelry quite quickly. After that,
Erik spent a few moments deciding what to put in his cart but it did
not seem that this was due to confusion, just indecisiveness. After
putting the item in his cart and attempting to check out, he ran into
issues. He tried clicking around the different options of the site
randomly but nothing worked so he became frustrated and gave
up.
It seemed Erik had a much easier time with the PacSun site and
after asking him, it was no surprise that he preferred it. From our
point of view, he spent a lot less time trying to navigate the site and
more on the actual tasks that the site had to offer. This shows that
with usability testing, the site that allows you to think and click less
is the preferred site and if Macy’s had a usability test it would
benefit them greatly.