In this test, I took a screen shot of Publix.com's homepage. I grey-scaled the image and blotted out anywhere where the Publix logo was present. I then uploaded the image to www.fivesecondtest.com where I had people look at the at the altered homepage image for five seconds and then answer the following questions about what they saw:
1. "What is this website/application about?"
2. "What would you do at this website/application?
3. "Who would use this website/application?"
The results of the test can be observed here.
My observations about these results are as follows are below:
1. In response to the first question answers:
Most people thought the website was about an e-commerce site focused on school supplies (specifically back to school). This was likely because the top-most graphic had a picture of a school bell and said back to school sale. In the five seconds they were given, it is logical they would see that graphic and assume the website was related to school, rather than groceries as Publix really is. In fact the anomaly in the answers was that only two people figured out that it was really a grocery store. This must have been discerned by the wide variety of products that was probably tipped off most by the presence of a Pharmacy link.
2. In response to the second answers:
The trend in the second question seems to be best described by the term “Not sure.” With people assuming that the site was about back-to-school sales, its curious that they couldn’t intuit from that what someone might do at the site, even if incorrect. There were quite a few responses along the lines of “buy something.” I think the anomaly here is the one response of “Nothing.” It’s hard to say whether or not this was just confusion or defiance, but given the site and all it’s got going on it, I’m a little surprised that the individual could not guess at a single reason why someone would use the site when everyone else did.
3. In Response the third question answers:
This question’s responses seemed to mirror the first questions. Those who answered that the site was about school logically deduced that teachers, parents, or students would use the site. The anomaly here appears to be the one answer of “Doctors.” I see how the answer was arrived at, but given the surrounding links and back-to-school visual, it seems a little unlikely that the site could be misconstrued as a site that doctors would go to. Given the positioning of where the “Pharmacy” link is on the site and the buttons around it being, “Services” “Save Here” “Products,” it seems feasible that someone could have just followed the categorical navigation bar left to right in the five seconds and omitted the rest of the page. Still it would seem that if that is in fact the case, people in need of filling their prescriptions would be more likely of visitor to the page than doctors would be.
Part Two - Observational Usability Testing
It was interesting to watch people interact with the site in different ways. Of the five testers who attempted to find savings on the Publix.com site, 3 were my peers (age 24-26) and 2 were older (age 58-59). The interesting thing about part two of the usability test, is that the most prominent banner on the Publix site changes at some interval. So those who took my five second test who saw a banner with a school bell graphic were given to thinking the site was about school materials. When the testers in my observational test interacted with the homepage, they encountered different banners. Some banners made the task of trying to find where to go for savings significantly easier than others.
In at least three of the five users I noticed some common behavior. Three of the users thought that the "Weekly Ad" section would be their best bet for finding savings. Four of the five users clicked on sections with graphics in the body of the page rather than the category of "Save Here" at the top of the page with the other categories and drop-down menus. Also, three of four that were prompted to enter their Zip Code for particular store deals were compliant with instruction while the fourth opted not to and just look at the deals.
I found it surprising that only one of the four testers used the navigational bar atop the site to click on "Save Here" for the options on how to save (ie Coupons, Weekly Ad, Buy One Get One Free, etc). This behavior is a bit of an anomaly in that the rest of the testers gravitated toward the body content with graphics rather than perusing the navigational bar at the top of the page.
This behavior leads me to believe that people tend to look what they want first and try and figure out where to go from where their eye has landed rather than necessarily looking for a logical place to begin. It seems like one they see a feasible link to click, they do so rather than continuing their search. This relates to Steve Krug's book Don't Make Me Think in which he discusses how a user is likely to not rationalize their clicking as severely if they believe that they can easily remedy their choice. I think people gravitated towards the graphics because the navigation bar type is harder to read than the sub-categories that have images next to them. I think the user is given to thinking that these sub-categories are likely to be, hierarchically, most important since they are given such prominence in the center of the page and have small write-ups and pictures.
It was interesting to watch people interact with the site in different ways. Of the five testers who attempted to find savings on the Publix.com site, 3 were my peers (age 24-26) and 2 were older (age 58-59). The interesting thing about part two of the usability test, is that the most prominent banner on the Publix site changes at some interval. So those who took my five second test who saw a banner with a school bell graphic were given to thinking the site was about school materials. When the testers in my observational test interacted with the homepage, they encountered different banners. Some banners made the task of trying to find where to go for savings significantly easier than others.
In at least three of the five users I noticed some common behavior. Three of the users thought that the "Weekly Ad" section would be their best bet for finding savings. Four of the five users clicked on sections with graphics in the body of the page rather than the category of "Save Here" at the top of the page with the other categories and drop-down menus. Also, three of four that were prompted to enter their Zip Code for particular store deals were compliant with instruction while the fourth opted not to and just look at the deals.
I found it surprising that only one of the four testers used the navigational bar atop the site to click on "Save Here" for the options on how to save (ie Coupons, Weekly Ad, Buy One Get One Free, etc). This behavior is a bit of an anomaly in that the rest of the testers gravitated toward the body content with graphics rather than perusing the navigational bar at the top of the page.
This behavior leads me to believe that people tend to look what they want first and try and figure out where to go from where their eye has landed rather than necessarily looking for a logical place to begin. It seems like one they see a feasible link to click, they do so rather than continuing their search. This relates to Steve Krug's book Don't Make Me Think in which he discusses how a user is likely to not rationalize their clicking as severely if they believe that they can easily remedy their choice. I think people gravitated towards the graphics because the navigation bar type is harder to read than the sub-categories that have images next to them. I think the user is given to thinking that these sub-categories are likely to be, hierarchically, most important since they are given such prominence in the center of the page and have small write-ups and pictures.
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