After analyzing the results of our user studies, the Basket Lace team established a list of the IOLI website’s key usability problems. These problems, with brief reasons they are concerning and matter to users, include:
1. Poor global navigation and organization
Users must consistently return to the home page in order to navigate to other areas of the site, increasing work due to unnecessary backtracking. In addition, there many menu labels to choose from on the home page, and their meanings are not immediately intuitive.
2. No mobile responsiveness
Mobile text and page elements are incredibly small and difficult to visualize without enlarging, which aggravates other design issues.
3. No filter or search capability for the galleries
It is difficult, if not impossible, for users to find what they are looking for, whether known specifically or abstractly. Plus, the galleries are split into haphazard categories, confusing the current structure for searching.
4. No descriptive labels and poor thumbnails for the gallery images
It takes users a long time to go back and forth between photos, which is the only way to access an item’s name and related information, such as its pattern.
5. Need to download [noninteractive] documents to gain basic information
There is forced extra clicking. In addition, users spend a lot of time searching for basic information because these secondary documents are quite dense and text-heavy. It also increases the likelihood of important information going unnoticed.
6. No tagline and poor main photo on the homepage
The site’s purpose is unclear, especially because the organization itself it not a household name. The photo selected to represent the organization does not lend for much credibility.
7. Poor information chunking, with need for global editing and appropriate hyperlinking
The syntax throughout the site is often confusing for users. Plus, there is room to save users time by including hyperlinks in helpful locations and eliminating language and content redundancies.
8. Lack of a local charter chapter search function Users do not have a definitive way to determine which charter chapter is local to them. This is especially problematic due to the convoluted list of charter chapters, as well as the lack of specific location information. Plus, there are only links for some charter chapters, so information is not always possible to glean from a specific locality. The interactive map that is available has little use.
9. No library catalog search capability
Users must spend a lot of time scrolling through text-heavy secondary documents to see what items are available. The library is split into haphazard categories, confusing the current structure for searching. In addition, there is no way to determine if an item is currently in stock, or if an item comes in multiple formats.
10. Lack of design consistency
There is differing amounts of useful information on each web page and/or secondary document. Plus, there is no rhythm between pages, making it difficult for users to learn and decipher a hierarchy within or across pages, or pick out important details.
Our team chose elements from this list to redesign by using “Low Cost, High Speed Prioritizing.” We gave each problem an importance ranking (on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being most important) as well as an estimated cost ranking (on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being cheapest or easiest). The two numbers were added, and the elements with the lowest scores were selected for immediate redesign. The final scores were:
Poor global navigation and organization – 2
No mobile responsiveness – 6
No filter or search capability for the galleries – 9
No descriptive labels and poor thumbnails for the gallery images – 4
Need to download [noninteractive] documents to gain basic information – 8
No tagline and poor main photo on the homepage – 2
Poor information chunking, with need for global editing and appropriate hyperlinking – 5
Lack of a local charter chapter search function – 7
No library catalog search capability – 7
Lack of design consistency – 3
Based on perceived importance and cost estimate, we selected three elements for initial redesign, including 1) Poor global navigation and organization, 2) No tagline and poor main photo on the homepage, and 3) Lack of design consistency.