Website Design & Usability Testing
Client: Minnesota Association of Marriage & Family Therapy
The Minnesota Association for Marriage and Family Therapy is a professional organization dedicated to promoting the well-being of families, couples and individuals through the advancement of marriage and family therapy. I conducted user research and recommended usability improvements to the website as well as adjustments to make the site better reflect MAFMT’s identity and long-term goals.
METHODS
Heuristic Analysis
In Person Usability Testing
Remote Usability Testing
TOOLS
Sketch
Axure RP
Photoshop
QuickTime
Otter
Trello
MY ROLE
In this project, I collaborated with a team of four during the research phase–creating an interview script and doing the in-person interviews. The remainder of the work on this project, the heuristics, the reports and the prototype are my work.
WHAT I ENJOYED
In my previous career I worked as an administrator at a college where one of my duties was to maintain content on the website. I empathize with non-profit administrators who often serve in many diverse roles and don’t come from a design or web development background. For these types of clients, it’s so important that designers build impactful, evergreen content and be very careful and strategic about creating content that will need to be constantly maintained. I would have enjoyed following this project all the way through the end.
The Project
Client
The Minnesota Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (MAMFT) is a non-profit professional organization, dedicated to promoting the well-being of families, couples, and individuals through the advancement of the profession and practice of marriage and family therapy in the state of Minnesota.
MAMFT’s website is primarily oriented towards therapists who are (or are looking to become) members of the professional organization. The site facilitates membership services, promotes upcoming and annual events, hosts the posting of classifieds that only members can view, and other services.
Long term, MAMFT is interested in adjustments that position them as a resource for the public, such as the ability to search/find a MFT and the inclusion of researched-informed articles or resources on maintaining lasting relationships, etc.
As part of their 5-year strategic plan, MAMFT plans to become more inclusive and visible to the public sector.
Challenge
I was asked to recommend changes to site to help improve usability as well as recommend changes that would adjust the site to better reflect MAFMT’s identity and goals.
Outcome
I examined MAMFT.net through heuristic evaluation and usability testing and found that there were a variety of challenges to the way the website communicates MAMFT’s identity and values as well as usability barriers to the execution of primary tasks.
The key take-away from this study is that the vision and future goals of MAMFT as well as site usability must guide the site build project going forward. The goal for most websites is that they would be accessible by all. But practically, if MAMFT aspires to be a resource for patients as well therapists, the language, text saturation, organization, member directory and method of distributing publications–the presentation layer–should be re-crafted with a patient persona in mind.
Planning
Heuristics
In order to acquaint ourselves with the website, we conducted a heuristic review of mamft.net using Shneiderman’s “Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design” and found a significant number of challenges in relation to organization recognition, the user flow for registering for an event, the user flow for becoming a member, and other areas.
In examining the heuristics through the lens of the client’s site goals, pain points and 5-year strategic plan, we set two testing goals to help guide the creation of a testing script.
■ How does the site convey perceived values of the organization? Are there areas of opportunity for strengthening this?
■ Evaluate the perceived and actual usability of primary tasks.
Scripting
Think aloud protocol, Desirability testing and Usability testing
Give us your Initial Impressions. ■ What do you think this organization might do? ■ How would you go about becoming a member? ■ After signing up for a membership, show me what you would expect or want to do with your new membership? ■ Could you show how you would find and register for a training session? ■ Could you share with us the circumstances where you might want to submit an article to the newsletter? ■ How would you go about connecting to other members of this organization? ■ Now, imagine now that your title has changed from an Associate to a Pre-Clinical Member status. How would you edit this in your user profile? ■ How would you renew your membership?
Usability Tests
Using our script and research goals, we conducted twelve usability tests: eight 40-minute remote tests and four 20-minute in-person tests. Various technology (skype, google hangouts, zoom, etc.) was employed to allow testers to observe and record participants’ use of the website.
Two key perspectives were present in our pool of testing participants: people professionally connected to the mental health field and people with no connection to the mental health field.
A psychologists and social worker (who had never used the website) encountered fewer usability problems navigating the website, perhaps because of their use of other similar sites. People from other backgrounds encountered more usability problems in connection with the language/terminology, the dense text, and the organization of site.
Challenges Discovered
Participant comments were added to Trello. We labeled, sorted and studied them to gain insight into participants’ shared usability issues.
Recommendations
Identity and Perceived Values
Effectively communicate the identity of MAMFT ■ Demonstrate the value of membership ■ Provide practice-based resources
Rework the logo so that it communicates ”Marriage and Family Therapy” instead of MAMFT
Replace the homepage carousel with a dynamic panel to allow users to interactively discover important content.
Make the site a patient resource through prominently placing “Find a MFT” and “Patient Resources” on the homepage.
Create a members area section of the website, accessible by joining.
Expand the newsletter into a more robust blog-style resource area, both for practicing therapists and for patients.
Homepage Concept (Axure)
Improve Usability
Encourage and support membership enrollment/renewal ■ Connect members ■ Facilitate event registration ■ Support classified ads ■ Communicate articles/news:
Reorganize the user flow so that a potential member is pitched the benefits before being told the costs.
Create “Find a MFT” page with the ability to search by location, specialty, and other typical filters.
Simplify event descriptions, remove event details duplicated across pages, modernize the progress bar, and auto-fill member details from the saved profile.
Place classified ads in the member section for ease of finding and so members recognize it as a benefit.
Expand the newsletter into a more robust blog-style resource area, both as a resource for patients and therapists but also to give voice to Marriage and Family Therapists in communicating about their practice with the larger public.