With the advent of the new Plugin Directory, I wanted to get some basic user testing in place to help guide UX decisions. Props to @designsimply for helping me with the tasks, and to @tellyworth for making sure functionality was up-to-par for testing.
In this test, I wanted to observe the user’s ability to easily find a plugin, and verify which meta information helped the user select the best plugin for their use.
Tasks
- Find an SEO plugin you think would be the best solution for your website, and talk through the reasons why you’d pick that one
- What would be the next step you would take to install the plugin on your site? [Verbal Response]
- How was your experience finding this plugin? [Verbal Response]
- Locate the Plugin Search Field and search for a plugin that will add an image slider to your website.
- Are you able to make an informed decision from the search results page? Why, or why not? [Verbal Response]
- If you haven’t already, click on the plugin that you like best to view the details.
- Looking at this Plugin Detail page, how do you feel about the content layout and organization? Is there anything you might improve? Is there anything that is unclear? [Verbal Response]
- What are the top 3-4 things on this page that influence your decisions when selecting a plugin? [Verbal Response]
- Please share your overall experience with this process. Was there anything you’d like to see improved? Was there anything you thought particularly helpful? [Verbal Response]
Video
Notes
- [1:48] After browsing, user decides to search for ‘SEO’
- [2:07] User looks at ratings as a good indicator for which plugin is best b/c other people tried it out and were satisfied.
- [3:17] User still doesn’t seem to have enough information to choose a plugin directly from search results page.
- [4:21] User clicked to check negative reviews and ended up at older layout for plugins reviews.
- [6:11] User is highly influenced by ratings above all else.
- [7:14] User checks “last updated” as well at this point.
- [8:33] User would download plugin and figure out how to install it. He didn’t see any instructions in the ‘description’.
- [9:09] User uses ‘search’ as an option when he’s “stuck”. He prefers browsing first, and then later searches.
- [10:23] User found the Plugin Search quite easily but then gets confused seeing another search field above it in the header. He expected it to be in top right corner.
- [12:21] Not enough info on search results page to make an informed decision.
- [15:09] User says layout is pretty typical on the Detail page.
- [16:10] Bringing negative reviews closer to the top would be helpful for this user.
- [16:30] Top 3-4 things this user relies on for selecting a plugin are: 1. Ratings, 2. Last updated, 3. Description/Feature list, 4. Maybe FAQs?
- [18:31] Overall experience was “fine”. Easy to find plugins. Providing more meaningful descriptions would be helpful b/c they all kinda looked the same in the short descriptions.