Usability Lessons Learned

Change may look nice on a poster, but tends to freak people out when it happens to a website they go to every day.  TechCrunch pushed a massive redesign yesterday, and it ignited impassioned uproar on the Twittersphere and a tip box full of threats. We decided to put it to the test on UserTesting, so we called on three of our testers who had NEVER visited TechCrunch to run through the site.  (They do exist, somewhere outside our bubble.)

We gave them a general scenario (that they had just seen a link shared by a friend about Ashton Kutcher funding a start-up and clicked on it), and with virgin eyes we let them at it.  Anonymous to us, except for their specified demographic data (18-55, $40-$100K in US, Canada, or UK), we watched these users navigate through the site with no agenda (other than we pay them $10 each for completing it) and listened to their thoughts as they freely expressed them.

We also specially requested two active TechCrunch readers (we let you do that), and within the same hour got their feedback as well (videos posted below).

Here are 8 Key Takeways:

1. Sharing “Bar” Easy to Access, but Doesn’t Make Sense
Overall while the users like the accessibility and persistence of the sharing bar, it confused people when you hovered over each of the 3 buttons, 4 different options appeared at once. It seemed they were expecting to click on the “f” and see Facebook only, and likewise for the others.

This guy was somewhat confused. (Watch here 4:20-4:30)

Another user was extremely confused.  It was the (Linked)in “Share” that tripped him up. (You MUST watch this.)

2. Categories Not Clear
Because ‘Hot Topics’ is green, albeit a darker shade of green, it appears to be a link. They tried to click on it, but nothing happened. A couple users experienced confusion between the very top nav bar and the hot topics. Perhaps if it was Hot Topics”:” and in black, it would be more obvious it wasn’t its own category, but rather they were displaying the hot (trending) topics.  One user was confused that he found hot story on NetFlix in “Gadgets” category.

3. Users Overlooked Popular Posts
Mouses were drawn to the images, the big headlines, the green hot topics, and the Tip box, but the Popular Posts were generally not acknowledged until very late in the game — and none seemed to stand out as interesting. I suppose the giant headlines and large images to the left dwarf the tiny font in which Popular Posts are listed.

All but one tester verbally expressed that they liked to see the number of comments on top of the articles, so including metrics with the popular posts (like number of comments) might help it catch their attention.

4. Generally Like Layout (UserTesters don’t lie)
All loved loved the sleek new author byline with the number of comments featured on top, and they (actually) liked the color scheme. A couple wished they could see the time the article was posted (currently just shows date).  They wanted the articles broken up with more pictures or bullet points (“throw a picture of Ashton in there waving.” – SuddenTom) All commented that they were negatively distracted by the flash ad on the right.

The other big downer expressed was having to keep scrolling down to see more articles (blame the large headlines). Perhaps making the teasers (past the first most recent articles) engaging soundbites with the headline and picture, instead of the first two paragraphs — the people would be compelled to click “Read More.”

5. Users Hate Pushing “View More” Facebook Comments
Users expressed how they love to read the comments. That being said, they did not like when they clicked to ‘view more’ comments, only a few loaded at a time. They wanted to either see them all at once from the start, or at least there be to be one button they click to see all.

This user expressed the most discontent. (Hear this guys’ true feelings 2:22-3:00, and 11:20-11:42.)

6. Search Could be a Lot Better

Search is supposed to be in the top right corner, right? Well, perhaps it was too far up there, because users seemed to miss it — or take more than 5 seconds to find it.  The users initially paid more attention to the green hot topics rather than the top navigation categories, so perhaps moving or adding search bar just to the right of the ‘hot topics’ might be a good thing.

Two users who used the Search feature, experienced disappointing results:
- One user who searched for Final Cut Pro, wanted to see current articles only, and was disappointed he could not order results by date.
- Another user wanted the ability to search by tags, and was ultimately disappointed after he searched for Google+ and just got a bunch of general Google results.

7. Start-up Section Did Not Hold its Promise to New User
One user clicked on ‘Start-ups’ but was disappointed to see only the next big Series X. “There is a lot of investment news. I’d prefer if instead of investments, it would be web start-ups just coming out that I could get involved with and start using… not so much interested in the funding side of things.” (Watch Video 9:04-9:40)

8. And yes, the logo: It’s muddy
While one user “really liked it with it’s completely original 8bit style,” another felt it “feels forced,” one said it “muddies the water,” one stated it was “unrecognizable at representing letters,” and the last felt it “looks a bit geeky, but that’s what TechCrunch is about.”

Verdict: Surprisingly, it’s not so bad.  All generally liked the layout referring to it as “clean” and “easy to read,” the color scheme, the new author byline, and even the big headlines. Their feelings about the logo were less of anger, and more of confusion (it’s difficult to make out the ‘c’).

It was the Facebook comments and having to continually press “view more” that really ruffled their feathers and the “distracting” GIF ad on the top right. The sharing buttons looked nice, but ultimately confused them.  Bugs? Well, two users caught the same spelling error (it said movie instead of move, ironically in the Ashton Kutcher article, which has been corrected), and all experienced at least one slow loading issue (it took 30+ seconds for page to load for this guy, starting at 9:10) on the site.

Overall, we kind of like the new look, but hope they’ll take these results to continue to improve the user experience.

WATCH THE VIDEOS

Test 1 JoRogan, UK, 41M (Never Visited TechCrunch.)

Test 2 SuddenTom, US, 48M (Never Visited TechCrunch.)

Test 3 Bradz1988, UK 23M (Never Visited TechCrunch.)

Test 4 devoted, UK, 33M (Frequent TechCrunch reader.)

Test 5 Leeadair, US, 47M (Frequent TechCrunch reader.)

Found this enlightening?  Get users to tell you what’s wrong with your site, Here.  We promise you it’s the best $39 you’ll ever spend.

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