Offline Mobile Usability Test
Offline is a free curated guide to your city's best events and experiences, available in Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte, NC
Summary
Overview
In an effort to improve the usability of the app, the User Experience team conducted a usability test on the Offline app. Testing was conducted on these three key features:
Ability to find things to do in a specific neighborhood
Ability to add an event to Offline
Ability to share an event with friends
Testing and Recruitment
Twelve participants were recruited via a third party provider and brought in for an in- person moderated testing session.
We read the participants an informed consent agreement and recorded them performing key tasks in the app. We studied the recordings and summarized the key findings and recommendations.
Key Findings
The “Category & Search” field only shows events when search is executed.
Adding an event is not supported within the app.
No way to share an event if you do not allow Offline to access your contacts.
Offline is difficult to find in the app store.
Key Recommendations
Include sub-regions/neighborhoods within search results. Allow neighborhood filtering in the location menu.
Allow users to create an event within the app.
Allow users to share the URL of an event with a a friend without having to share contact information with Offline.
Increase the findability of Offline in the app store (follow up with management needed.)
Methodology
Participants were asked to download the Offline App to their phones. After installing the app and creating an account, they were asked to perform 3 high level tasks on the app. Analysis was specifically targeted for the users “first-run” experience with the app.
Participant Information
Twelve participants were recruited for this study. Half were female and half were male. Their ages ranged from early twenties to mid sixties. There were a mix of different technical abilities with some unable to complete tasks without some assistance and some completing the tasks with no difficulty at all.
Tasks
Imagine you just moved to Madison Park in Charlotte North Carolina. Where would you go to find things to do in your area?
Let’s say you are about to host a grand opening for your new restaurant in Charlotte. How would you add your opening to the Offline app?
Suppose you found something cool going on and you wanted to share it with a friend. How would you do that?
Participant Testing
Findings & Recommendations
When classifying the severity of usability issues, it is important to define a scale in which the issues can be prioritized. Below are the definitions used for this study.
Critical: If we do not fix this, users will not be able to complete the scenario.
Serious: Many users will be frustrated if we do not fix this; they may give up.
Minor: Users are annoyed, but this does not keep them from completing the scenario. This should be revisited later.
Task 1
Findings
Most participants were drawn to the Categories & Search text field. They searched for neighborhoods and could not find any in the results.
Once participants found their neighborhood, They had no way to further filter the results based on date, activity, etc.
The term “Neighborhoods” seemed to resonate more with users than “Guides.”
Participant Quote
“Now that I’m here, I see all these cool things to do, but what is this sorted by? ... Let’s say I wanted to do something this Saturday, how do I narrow it down to Madison Park?”
Recommendations
Allow neighborhoods to show up in search results.
Once a city location is set, show only neighborhoods in the location drop list.
Categories and Search is too vague. Consider changing the label to “Search Events.”
Task 2
Findings
Participants could not find the add event button.
Participants expected to be able to create an event within the app itself and did not like being redirected to a website.
Some users did not have a Facebook or Instagram account or were unwilling to contact Offline via social media.
Participant Quote
“I guess I would press the plus (+) button but I really hate how it takes me out of the app because I have no idea where I’m at now.”
Recommendations
Add labels to icons to clarify functionality
Allow users to create an event within the app.
Task 3
Findings
Share button does not work if users do not allow Offline to access their contact information.
Participant Quote
“I want a way to share the event without the app accessing my contacts.”
Recommendations
Allow users to share an event with a friend using a URL even if they have not shared their contacts with Offline.
Other Findings & Recommendations
Recommendations
Contact Apple to see what can be done to increase the visibility of the app in the app store. Possibly consider re-naming the app to something more specific.
Allow the Share button to copy a link to the event without requiring access to the users contact list.
Findings
Users had a hard time finding the app in the app store.
If users did not allow Offline to access their contacts, the Share button on the event listing does not work.
Questions for Management
Do we have enough resources on staff to implement the add an event feature to the app?
How can we increase the findability of the Offline in the app store without users having to specify “Offline App”?
What areas provide the most revenue for Offline and how can we augment them?