MobiPrize is a contest for entrepreneurs working in the field or sustainable mobility, which rewards innovative and successful business ideas. After a successful first year, SMART wanted to assess their website in order to make improvements for the coming years. I worked in a team with 4 other students to write a series of reports about MobiPrize’s users and web presence and to offer recommendations for changes in future website iterations.
Problem: MobiPrize’s needed to know what the user pain points were on their current website to inform changes they hoped to make in the future.
Process: In order to assess the usability of the MobiPrize website, we performed a heuristic evaluation and conducted usability testing.
First, using Nielsen’s Heuristics, we each evaluated the website and then we compiled our prioritized results into a table which MobiPrize could use to make decisions about website changes.
Next, we ran a usability study in which we had users attempt to conduct processes which our interviews with previous applicants and with MobiPrize management identified as being important. First, we had users use the website to find information about the contest rules, sponsors and application process. Then we had the users try to find information about the entrepreneurs who had previously applied. MobiPrize kept a database of applicants in with the intention of helping entrepreneurs network with each other, investors and potential customers. Potential publicity and networking opportunities were identified as important by our interviewees, and so we wanted to make sure this functionality was easy to use. We created a series of both known item and unknow item searches and observed how users interacted with the system to conduct them.
Results: We were able to offer several recommendations to MobiPrize about improvements they could make to the website to make it easier for users to use. These ranged from simple fixes like changing a header which was misleading users, to suggestions on rearchitecting content.