Performing Arts Supply UX Research Project

The Background

To practice my craft, I decided to redesign an ailing website. I conducted a competitive analysis, created personas, ran a card sort, reviewed the current site’s heuristics and ran a usability study. After analyzing the data, developed a new mobile-friendly interface and a prototype showcases the primary user flow – search for a costume, then book a fitting.

Why Performing Arts Supply?

I selected Performing Arts Supply because I know about theater and I was confident that I could develop tangible solutions. Also, I'm friends with the owner and I thought it would be nice to do for her.

Research Plan

I developed a comprehensive research plan but only had time to execute the competitive analysis, personas, card sort, heuristic analysis and user testing. 

Feel free to peruse my unused research instruments.

In-Depth Interview

Online Survey

Diary Study

Competitive Analysis 

Performing Arts Supply’s main competition is Techland Houston and is the primary focus of the competitive analysis. Techland Houston takes a, ‘we’ll throw everything we have and the kitchen sink at you’ approach to website design. However, they excel at looking up to date. Their site is responsive and their graphics are high quality.

See complete competitive analysis and site selection info.

Personas

Not having great access to users or data, I created three personas then ran them by Performing Arts Supply’s owner, Stacey and Lisa, a stitcher in the shop.

On to the Card Sort and my Dendrogram

I should have known when I had to borrow my husband’s PC because the SynCaps software that helps build dendrograms wasn't available on a Mac that I was going to be in trouble. I really wanted a jazzy dendrogram.

So I took the plunge. I downloaded the software to his machine, documented all my findings in the syntax above, loaded the file and immediately got an error. After a few tweaks to the data, I figured out that I didn’t have the right syntax. SynCaps is free and the documentation is  about how to use it is lacking. After much research on the SynCaps website, I learned that one can export the results of an open card sort conducted in OptimalSort in the SynCaps syntax. That was all well and good but OptimalSort’s free version only allows up to 30 cards.

My card sort was done with 47 cards.

Since all I needed was to export the correct syntax, so I opened an OptimalSort account, created a 30-card study, shuffled some cards, labeled them and exported the results.

Alas, I had the correct syntax. Sexy, right?

I changed my data so it was in the right format for Syncaps and loaded it onto my husband’s PC. I finally had my dendrogram.

Sadly, the dendrogram failed to tell the story. 

I mean. It’s okay. But the item grouping is much easier to interpret. I think it’s the color-coding. The dark blue areas say, “There’s a lot of agreement about this.” Whereas, the light blue areas say, “Not so much. We need to do more digging to figure this out.”

So I learned to pronounce dendrogram, write appropriate syntax for SynCaps and that Performing Arts Supply could do something amazing with the information architecture for the business side of theater.

On the positive side, the homepage gave S1 enough context clues to believe that she might find something.

By contrast, when S2 said she wanted to be a turtle, I knew I was in trouble. She was already turned off by the dated look and feel of the site. It’s design gave no indication that they offered anything but period costumes. There was no way S2 would have gone past the first page if she wasn’t participating in the study. My concern increased when S3 said he wanted to be a shark and, based on what’s showcased on the site, he didn’t believe they’d have a costume for him.

I don’t know if Performing Art Supply offers turtle or shark costumes, but they definitely branch beyond the skinny medieval tavern wench crowd. Regardless of the costume desired, all participants said they’d expect to see the following details about a costume:

• Description

• Size

• Availability

• Cost

• (We’ll add ‘Book a Fitting’ in a sec)

Task Three: Provide Your Measurements

The measurement sheet is in an entirely different part of the site than the other costume information. It took quite a bit of prompting for users to find. As the research went on, I realized that it was part of the user flow outlined earlier.

User Flow Steps

1. Search

2. Find

3. Learn

4. Provide measurements

5. Book a fitting

The users didn’t say it in those words. They don’t talk about user flows and micro-interactions. As a user experience professional, it is my job to pick up on those cues and create a unified experience.

Task 4: Addam’s Family Costumes

By this point, the users were proficient at finding the costumes. They didn’t like opening a PDF to get to the information they needed about plays and musicals, but they could do it. During this task, what I found most valuable was that S3 suggested making it easier for the user to request the costumes.

The usability testing revealed an underlying truth that I was unable to see because I’d already been biased by all I’d learned proceeding the testing. Which it why it is so vital to test with people who have intent but no knowledge of the actual site.

S3 described his solution in almost the same terms that a woman who works at Performing Art Supply used when I spoke to her many weeks earlier.

Task 5: Find Paint

This was the most straightforward task. The users didn’t make a single misstep.

They wanted the same type of information about these products as they did about the costumes. Description, cost, availability, etc. The idea of a shopping cart came up at this point.

What the users didn’t mention, but as a designer, I couldn’t get over was the fact that the paint cans are all different sizes and out of focus. I asked several questions about the quality of these pictures but the users weren’t nearly has hung up on it as me. I came to the conclusion that their expectations are low. They didn’t say, “my underlying assumption is that this is a small, mom-and-pop-shop, therefore my expectations are low.”

If they’d found pictures like that on Etsy or Amazon they’d think it was a joke or that one of those companies had been interfered with by the Russians. This is where the professional connects the dots. To marry user experience with industry expectations. And usability testing is one of the best ways to gather unique perspectives along with themes. All of which lead to a better design.

https://ajackc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/pas-usability-test-results-recommendations.pdf