Objective: testing the usability of the webiste to improve the user experience flow of an Italian luxury brand specialized in accessories and clothes. The main focus was to test whether buying a bag for women or shoes for men was a smooth process from looking for a specific item to checkout. Participants were asked to give feedback on the usability of the website but also report possible issues while exploring the website.

 Approach:

• Usability Test & Interviews: this project included a usability test with 31 Italian (N=10) and American (N=21) testers (19 female, 12 male, 0 non-binary) across various devices (10 iOS, 11 Android, 5 Mac OS, 5 Windows). Participants were selected based on their luxury purchasing habits in terms of frequency, brands and device used for purchasing, to ensure relevant and valuable insights. The usability test was followed by 8 interviews with Italian (N=4) and American (N=4) testers to gain more qualitative insights during the website navigation and to better understand their searched behavior when asked to look for a specific item.

Methodology:

• Participants: 21 testers from the USA (15 mobile, 6 desktop) and 10 from Italy (4 desktop & mobile).

• Use Cases:

  • Assessed the full user experience as a registered user or as a guest. Participants were first asked to explore the website freely to understand their browsing behavior. Then they were asked to find a specific bag (women) or a specific pair of shoes (men) and review product details, images, and user-friendliness of product pages. The cart section and the checkout were also assessed and reviewed by asking the participants to add the item to the cart and go through the checkout process focusing on clarity and ease of use.

    Interviews: the same use cases were used during the interviews however men were now asked to look for a specific bag and women for a specific pair of shoes.

• Data collected:

  • Qualitative (usability feedback on the website from 31  testers reports and interviews) and quantitative (more than 100 issues reported that needed to be processed).

Outcome:

• Communication with the client reporting on the issues submitted by the testers and the general progress of the test.

• Two final reports, one from the usability test with detailed recommendations based on the participants’ feedback and an overview of the issues found divided by device (iOS, Android), category (Crash, Malfunction, Display Error, Language), and severity (Critical, High, Medium, Low), and one focusing more on the user experience insights from the interviews were delivered to the client to enhance their website’s general user experience and to fix all the issues reported affecting the customer purchasing flow.