Case Studies
Customer Support Web Site
Usability Testing of Web Site
The Background
This multinational and very large telecommunications company had developed a knowledge-base from within their corporate website for existing and potential customers. The knowledge-base was intended to provide the latest product documentation. The target audience for the knowledge-base was the customers technical staff who may need reference material for ongoing equipment maintenance. The main site also provided product information forall of their product lines available to all users.
Feedback from the marketplace indicated that users were having difficulties finding information and were confused and potentially frustratedby the search options provided.
The Challenge
To assess the search-matching interface sequence for both the documentation and product areas of the website. Our customer needed to understand what search strategies users employ to find product information and to find pieces of relevant documentation.
The "hit rate"on being able to find the right information at the right time just wasn't what our customer needed it to be.
The Product
We conducted formal usability tests focusing on firstly the product area and then, in a separate test, the documentation area of the website.A combination of face-to-face and remote tests were held by us to enable users from several locations to participate in the testing. A new design was suggested out of these findings.
A second round of testing was completed several months later with the new design in place for the product area of the website. This allowed our customer to assess the effectiveness of the proposed changes.
The Result
The results of the first-round testing for the documentation area of the website identified a number of incremental design improvements to facilitate improved ease of use.
The results of the testing for the product area of the website identified major design issues which prevented users from fully utilizing the search capabilities of the site.
The later test of the re-design on this product area revealed significant improvements in the user success in finding information as well as increased user satisfaction with the search capability.