Fun+Cooker+Usability+Test

Matt Orlove Chris Carmel Jen Gorski

=Fun Cooker= (login: guest/guest)

We came up with five separate tests that would allow us to study the overall functionality of the whole website. These tests include the vast majority of all interactions users will have with our website. We all went into this expecting to find our interface was perfect (as I'm sure many developers do) only to find that we in fact have a lot of work to do. Our tests were as follows:

1. Create account. 2. Upload recipe. 3. Find a tag and follow it. 4. Find a user and follow them. 5. Find a recipe and add it to your Recipe Book.

__**Usability Test Plan:**__

First - we describe the website to them, focusing on the important things: recipe website meets twitter - you can follow tags of specific foods/types of foods/meals/really anything and you can follow other users. Whenever a new recipe with the tag is added or a user you're following uploads a recipe, it shows up on your personal timeline. You have a recipe book that stores all recipes you want to hold on to. There's a region where people who live in the same geographic location can interact with one another.

We show the homepage while we're discussing all this so they could get a good idea of how things are set up. We tried to limit this run-through of the site so we could accurately see if they can figure out how to get around themselves.

Fun Cooker Usability Study - In a separate window, we open up this form which includes the pre-test, list of tasks, and post-test.


 * Pre-Test** - the first page of the user study is the pre-test. This asks for basic information about the user including age, amount of internet use during the week, and how often they search for recipes online. After the user finishes, the list of tasks we would like them to complete is displayed (they can use this page as a reference). The tasks are the following:


 * 1. Create account.** (tests login page / location of logout link on the top right)



- You will create an account with the following credentials: Username: guest Password: guest - Once this account is successfully created (you'll be logged in), logout and log back in.


 * 2. Upload recipe.** (tests upload process)



- You will upload a recipe with the following details:

Title: Delicious Cereal Subtitle: cereal is so tasty Difficulty: Easy Calories: 200 - 350 per serving Pictures: c1.jpeg, c2.jpeg, c3.jpeg, c4.jpeg What You Need: - Bowl - Spoon Ingredients: - 5 cups - Cereal of choice - 2 cups - Milk

Step 1: Choose cereal. (image: cstep1.jpeg) Step 2: Pour cereal in bowl. (image: cstep2.jpeg) Step 3: Pour milk over cereal in bowl. (image: cstep3.jpeg) Step 4: Enjoy! (image: cstep4.jpeg) (the IDEAL plan is for them to navigate to the upload button at the top, fill in appropriate info, go to second page, fill in appropriate info, click submit and then be taken to their completed recipe page)


 * 3. Find a tag and follow it.** (tests ease of searching for tags)



- You want to find and follow the "breakfast" tag so you will be given updates for any recipes uploaded with the tag "breakfast". (the IDEAL plan is for them to navigate to the search bar, type breakfast, search, get to the breakfast search page, and click the follow button for breakfast)


 * 4. Find a user and follow them.** (tests ease of searching for user)



- You want to find and follow a user of the website named "dessert_diva" (the IDEAL plan is for them to navigate to the search bar, type dessert_diva, search, get to the dessert_diva search page, click on dessert_diva, and then follow them from their user page)


 * 5. Find a recipe and add it to your Recipe Book.** (tests ease of searching a recipe and Recipe Book functionality)



- You want to find an apple pie recipe entitled "Extra Appley Apple Pie" and add it to your Recipe Book. (the IDEAL plan is for them to navigate to the search bar, type either apple pie or extra appley apple pie, search, get to the apple pie search page, click on extra appley apple pie, and then add to recipe book from there)


 * Post-test:** Once the user finished the set of tasks, we discussed the site and asked them to fill out a post-test. The results informed us of how the user found their overall experience based on the ease of use and design. We also asked for any comments or suggestions they had for improving the site.

__**Usability Test Results:**__

Test 1 - Test 2 - Test 3 - Test 4 - Test 5 -
 * Senior Special Education Major - Female - 22**
 * Internet Usage: 10-20 hours a week**
 * Intermediate recipe website user**
 * Went smoothly - no problems.
 * Completely ignored "Dish" section of first upload page.
 * Made good point that calorie text box should specify we want potential range of calories rather than specific number.
 * Felt prep / Cook time default should especially not be days and that possibly "days" and "seconds" shouldn't even be options.
 * Attempted to specify "No time" as an option for cook time - maybe have 0 minutes be default? Or have a separate option just for N/A?
 * Thought a preview step in between finishing entering in recipe data and submitting that would show completed recipe page would be a good way of reviewing submission - GREAT idea.
 * Went to side bar "Add Tag" text box because felt like using the main search bar and looking through the whole site for just one tag was too much. Seemed easier to her so a good idea that we added it. We should add a similar feature for users AS WELL as adding a drop down menu for the main search bar so people can easily search for specific things.
 * Pressed "Enter" key instead of clicking the "SEARCH" button. Meant to add this feature but ran out of time.
 * Confused - thought that recipes in search results were the recipes of the user "dessert_diva" rather than just recipes that matched the search "dessert_diva". We should make it more apparent what each section of the results represent as well as make searching more specific so if somebody wanted to search for dessert_diva's recipes they could do it just as easily as someone who just wanted recipe results of the search term "dessert_diva".
 * Thinks there should be an ability to "follow" users directly from search results. Definitely agree.
 * Once they learned that pressing "Enter" didn't work, they now immediately go to click "SEARCH". Inconvenient for users but at least they learn.
 * On the search results page, she tried to add the recipe to the Recipe Book from there. We should give an option to add to the Recipe Book right from the search results. Also, the entire horizontal block holding the individual recipe information should all be clickable. Maybe it should change the background color when highlighted to illustrate this even more.
 * When she hovered over the "+ to Recipe Book" link on the Extra Appley Apple Pie page the cursor didn't change to the usual hand indicator that the link is clickable. This caused some confusion. We need to fix this.

Test 1 - Test 2 - Test 3 - Test 4 - Test 5 -
 * Senior Finance Major - Male - 22**
 * Internet Usage: 10-20 hours a week**
 * Amateur recipe website user**
 * Started to fill out sign up credentials in login area. Said they didn't see the "Login" box beneath that section until after they started typing. Should add headers to each section (login and sign up) and possibly put horizontal rather than vertical for increased separation.
 * Completely ignored "Dish" section of first upload page but this was just because it didn't contain anything that they felt matched their recipe. Scroll bars aren't visible on my operating system (Mac OS X Lion) so they didn't know they could scroll further down. We should make this box show all possible choices to eliminate this confusion
 * Started entering in foods in the "What You Need" section - said that when he thought "What You Need" immediately he expected food went there. We should change the title to something a bit more obvious like "Kitchen Supplies".
 * Complained that the text boxes where you enter the amount of a specific ingredient weren't big enough.
 * Mentioned that the individual pictures for each step seemed tedious. How many people will actually utilize this feature?
 * Searched with the tag symbol ("#"). We should account for this specific case.
 * Pressed "Enter" when searching.
 * Pressed "Enter" when searching. Even though it didn't work previously, it's still instinct for him to press it. Definitely important to fix this.
 * Confused about "+ to Recipe Book" link not appearing to be clickable. Must fix this small issue.


 * Graduated Chemical Engineer - Female - 23**
 * Internet Usage: 10-20 hours a week**
 * Amateur recipe website user**

Test 1 - Test 2 - Test 3 - Test 4 - Test 5 -
 * Initially went to the log in boxes, but quickly caught herself and filled out the sign up portion properly
 * Put the ingredients in "What You Need" section on the second upload page after she entered them in the into the "Ingredients" section of the first upload page. The ingredients from the original upload page should cross over to the second upload page.
 * After noticing the "Ingredients" section, she transferred the ingredients over and added bowl and spoon to the "What You Need" section, although never removed the ingredients she put in there
 * Decided to completely ignore the picture for each step
 * The subject went to recipe book, region, and homepage looking for a tag and tried clicking on the various links on the homepage feed
 * Tried searching for tags in the "Add tag" search box on the homepage
 * Went to her region page and clicked through to the dessert_diva and clicked the follow button in the corner of the page
 * Didn't search, went to homepage and clicked through to the apple pie page
 * The incorrect cursor showing up under the "+ Recipe Book" image confused her for a moment, but she moved past it

Test 1 - Test 2 - Test 3 - Test 4 - Test 5 -
 * Sophomore Art Major - Female - 19**
 * Internet Usage: 5-10 hours a week**
 * Amateur recipe website user**
 * Entered the information in the login slots and then saw that the button said "login" and went to hit the "sign up" button. She then realized that she had to enter the information in the sign up area and filled out the form correctly.
 * On the first page, she skipped the "Meal" and "Dish" section options
 * After entering the ingredients, she clicked "add more" because she thought that was where she entered in the rest of the recipe's information. She was afraid that "continue" would take her to the finished recipe's page, not a page to enter more information.
 * She skipped the option to upload the recipe photos, but she uploaded the pictures for each step.
 * The user didn't have any problems performing this task other then pressing "Enter" to search. However, after she noticed nothing happened, she pressed the "Search" button.
 * The user wasn't sure where to search for the user. She went to the bottom of the page she was on and looked at those users and then went back to the home page to look around. After this, she asked if she could type the user's name into the search bar.
 * The user went to the "Recipe Book" and clicked on the apple pie recipe from there. Inside the recipe, she saw and clicked "+ Recipe Page" right away.

Test 1 - Test 2 - Test 3 - Test 4 - Test 5 -
 * Graduate Costume Design Student - Female - 24**
 * Internet Usage: 10-20 hours a week**
 * Intermediate recipe website user**
 * This user started to enter the information into the log in boxes, but she stopped herself and entered the information in the sign up area.
 * She did not see the "Upload" button on the navigation bar. On the home page, she was looking at the top right of the body where it says "All Recipes" and "My Recipe Book".
 * When filling in the information, she skipped the "Meal" and "Dish" options on the first page and the Recipe photos on the second page.
 * In the procedure section, she uploaded the procedure photos right away. However, she didn't realize that you write the actual procedure to the right. She only came back when she saw that there wasn't another area to write the procedure.
 * The user didn't have any problems performing this task other then pressing "Enter" to search
 * This user searched for the user in the search bar right away, but wasn't sure what to do next. She looked around the user because the breakfast tag had a "follow" button next to it. However, after clicking the user she saw the follow button on their page.
 * When she went to click "+ to Recipe Book" link, the cursor didn't change to the hand. She didn't think she could click it but she tried and it worked.


 * Post-Test Results:**

Key Comments/Suggestions: - "There's a learning curve to any website so I'm sure the problems I ran into I could easily get used to. Overall, very easy to figure out what to do!" - "A couple improvements to the uploading process would be good." - "Making search results easier to interact with by allowing certain abilities to be done without visiting individual pages would be great." - "I like that each page had the same header. I got used to getting around pretty quickly ignoring a few confusing moments i ran into." - "A couple things needed more explanation, but after performing the actions once it was easy to understand. Maybe after signing up you should have a short tutorial"

5 (most important): Allow the "Enter" key to be pressed in all our search bar / fix "+ to Recipe Book" link / other small fixes that will add a lot to functionality. 4: Fix searching / search results to help users with locating the recipe/user/tag/etc that they are looking for as well as allowing for more specified searches. 3: Optimize the upload procedure - we want to encourage users to post their recipes so this process should be as simple as possible. Many people had various problems while doing this test so we need to go back and make necessary adjustments. 2: Make login page more clear by adding headers and separating the "login" and "sign up" sections more. Add more explanations to buttons such as changing "add more" to "add more ingredients" 1 (least important): Improve overall design of our pages (changing fonts to increase visibility, resize objects to take advantage of space, etc).
 * Final Results - Priorities:**