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Improving the usability of Cancer Card's website  

Volunteer project 

Supporting Cancer Card to help them improve the design of their new website and make it easier for those suffering from cancer, their friends and their family to find help and support with all stages of their cancer journey. 

The problem

Cancer Card spent a lot of time and money to build a new website with an agency. The agency building the website didn't have the capability to test the website with users. After speaking to a friend who knew the charity, I volunteered to help them test the website with users and ensure it was easy to use for those suffering from cancer. 

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A few people in the UX team and marketing team were interested in learning more about how to conduct UX research and get some practical experience so I used this as a training opportunity. 

What did I do?  

1

Team training and mentoring

Before initially meeting with the team I ran a quick 45-minute training session with the other four people who were going to help with the research to teach them how to run usability testing. A lot of the group told me that they really enjoyed this and found it really interesting.

2

Kick off workshop 

I ran an initial 2-hour in-person workshop with the team, the Cancer Card team and the agency building the website. The agenda for the workshop was to do introductions, for Cancer Card to present the aim of their new website and for us to brainstorm ways to test the site with them. The output from the workshop was that we got a good understanding of what Cancer Card was looking to achieve with the site, a research plan and a set of common tasks their users might complete on the website. 

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3

First round of testing and presented findings 

For the first round of testing, we ran 3 different unmoderated usability tests with the same task but slightly different variations. The tasks used in the tests were the ones agreed upon in the workshop. The different test variations were; a desktop view of the site, a mobile view of the site and a timeout on the tasks. The purpose of the time out on the tasks was to see if users could understand information under pressure to replicate how people might behave in emotional distress. 

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I wrote the test plan for all three tests and launched the tests. I then demonstrated to the other members how to analyse the findings with a time-out task and then split them into pairs to analyse the remaining results. Once everyone in the team had analysed their test we gathered the results. 

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4

Second round of testing and user interviews

When combining our research we identified that across each of the tests, there was a common theme where the users struggled to understand the purpose of the website and the different sections. To find out more I planned, organised and conducted user interviews with a usability test. For this research, I worked with the charity to find people who were currently suffering from cancer or had suffered from cancer because it was important to get an accurate representation. During interviews with these participants, I had to be very careful and aware that the topic of the research could be difficult or triggering for them. 

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5

Presenting findings and helping with design changes

I presented the findings back to Cancer Card with the help of the team.  Some of the key recommendations included;

  • making the search more dynamic because users didn't think it brought up the right results,

  • repositioning the search filters so they always showed in a consistent location

  • changing the names of the page sections to make it easier for users to know what each section did. 

6

Retesting the new deisgn 

Using our recommendations the agency altered the design of the Cancer Card website. Once they had implemented the new design I re-tested the site using the same set-up and in the first round of testing to see if this had improved the design of the site. I analysed the results and played them back to the Cancer Card team. 

The result

The changes made on the back of my usability testing led to a 50% increase in the ease of SEQ (Single Ease Question) score from users and the time it took for users to complete the task. The design of the Cancer Card website has been commended by many organisations and they are considering adding a link to the NHS website. 

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