Gramercy Cleaners
Project Overview
Providing the organization with an evaluation of their current website using Primary Research. Includes Findings and Recommendations to improve customer usability throughout the platform.
Role & Methods
User Researcher, UX Writer, Data Documentation
Usability Testing, Heuristic Analysis, Participant Observation, Affinity Diagramming, Prototyping
Tools Used
Figma, Keynote, Zoom, Loom, Google Docs, Pages, Slack
Website: https://www.gramercycleanersnyc.com
About Gramercy
Gramercy Cleaners is a New York based cleaning service that has served customers for over 30 years.
This organization focuses on providing customers with Eco-Friendly services. Under new management, Gramercy changed over to non-toxic cleaning methods. With most cleaning services that use products that contain chemicals such as PERC that can be harmful to your skin and respiratory system. In providing non-toxic methods Gramercy focuses on the safety of customers.
In addition to eco-friendly services. Gramercy provides services like Tailoring, Alterations and Dry cleaning.
Summary
Performed usability tests using Think-Aloud protocol. This Method helped the team create an opportunity to receive insight on participants thoughts and feelings through scenarios in Gramercy. Method used to Identifying pain points and possible focus areas for usability testing using Heuristic Analysis
Conducted tests with 12 participants - 2 individual tests and 5 remote tests with a team
Remote usability tests were conducted using Zoom, collecting qualitative and quantitative data through user screen sharing to provide observations on usability of website. that is short, sweet, and to the point.
Heuristic Analysis Scale
Heuristic Analysis
Evaluation Goals
To better understand how easy or difficult it is for users to find information
• Tell me what services are available?
• How much would it cost to dry clean a week’s worth of clothes?
Gain insights about user flows
• Using scenarios
Identifying user perception and trustworthiness
• Question - What are the values of the company?
Identifying pain points and problem areas around user and business interactions
• Question - Tell me when services are available?
• Question - Tell me where they are located?
Site & Organizational Goals
Communicate and improve essential information to maximize customer comprehension and action through: displays of hours, menu items and the ease of navigation
Drive future and current customers to contact Gramercy in the most effective way
How to improve the information architecture and page layout
How to reduce clicks/actions along primary task flows
Any other suggested/improvements
Ensure customer’s safety by using only non toxic cleaning methods
What the website offers for the services
Communicate high-level of business practices and build trust with customers
Drive customers to contact the business
When looking into the Organization goals and site goal we used the heuristic Analysis to evaluate which had high usability issues. From there we created the evaluation goals as way to form our user tasks in order to identify pain points through testing.
— What was Found
Recruitment Criteria
Lived in a building that lacks laundry facilities
Needed an occasional item dry cleaned or tailored
Ever brought your dry cleaning and/or laundry to a service that does it for you
One participant met all three
All participants met at least 2 out of the 3 criteria
All Usability tests were done remotely and Provided by Prime Digital Academy
2 participants lived in NY
Average amount of time a day on the internet is 8+hrs
Most participants live is different states and work remotely
— Findings Summary
In identifying aesthetics and design, we applied a question that allowed us to understand how users felt about the over all site.
Company requested - How to improve the aesthetics and communication of content
Feedback came back positive with many users expressing the photo and overall page feeling warm and inviting
Quotes from some of the Participants
After Usability testing I identifies 5 Findings from order of high priority to low priority.
These Findings were then broken down by scenario they were found in, comments and insight on how they would impact the user and overall the company as a whole.
Findings Summary and Priority Ranking
Finding 1 - Lack of information and calls to action leads to users relying on a phone call
Scenarios - 1A. So let’s say you need to inquire about services and want to understand what they offer…. 1B.) Now you want to place an order…. Can you try doing that on the site?
Insight -
Users mentioned relying on calling in order to clarify services.
Not all users wanted to call
Many were unable to locate ‘Contact us Form’ and when discovered they were unable to receive the the feedback they wanted out of the section
Recommendation
Finding 2 - ‘Contact Us’ form was missed for users or not functional for their needs
Scenario - 1A. So let’s say you need to inquire about services and want to understand what they offer…. Can you try doing that on the site?
Insight -
All users found the Contact Us form “confusing” “strange”
Many missed the form or found it in an awkward location
This form led to doubts and confusion on its accuracy to receive any information back
Customers wanted clarity and accuracy when it came to cleaning services.
Users confusion led to low probability of entrusting a company with their personal belongings
Recommendation
Findings 3 - Information hierarchy and general categories were not organized as users expected
Scenario - What is your impression of the business?
Insight -
During usability tests participants found themselves struggling to find specific items that they needed for cleaning. This led to some participants giving up. Others attempted completed tasks although in a real life situation they too would give up locating information.
This would result in losing new customers or potential recurring customers when using the site
Recommendation
Findings 4 - Item turnaround is not super explicit or discoverable
Scenario - 2 & 3 - How might you use the services provided to approach the situation? For example, how much would it cost? When would you be able to drop it off? And when would it be ready?
Insight -
Creating a quote option that relieves them the struggle of identifying times and prices that can look unclear
Users found it frustrating when locating what was needed during the scenarios. Many clicking on pages multiple times to find an answer.
This ultimately would impact the chances that the users would use these services
Recommendation
Finding 5 - Highlighting Eco-Friendly Methods of service
Scenario - What is your impression of the business?
Insight -
Most users noticed eco- friendly being an important part of the business but believed the placement of that info should be located with details and highlighted more at the home page or about us
Recommendation
Additional Findings
Missing Content & Components (What was expected to see by users)
Laundry Options - confusion around not showing up on the first page ( see image for recommendations)
Pricing and detail confusion with service option - Plus sign needs to clarified- Adding a quote option for customers to calculate specific item or add additional information to describe what items or fabrics would cost more
Users had a difficulty calculating their laundry amount to cost
— Takeaway
I realize that when a client asks for the UX Designer to look into items that they see as probable issues. I had assumptions for what would be red flags and what would not be priority. By surprise there was content that ended up becoming positive across the board. I realized that assumptions will always be there but not to take it as essential data.