Role
UX Researcher
Timeline
January-April
(3-month project)
Group
Mingshan, Caoyang
Dureti, Priya
Tool
Miro
Excel
Why does Rexroth need us?
The website has been launched for nearly 6 months, and it is very new.
Bosch has a lot of products, but they require more designers and researchers.
We have some experience with user research methodology. They want to get some new ideas from the cooperation with us.
What methods did we take?
First stage
The research goal in the first stage is to have a basic understanding of the users, market position, and product functionality. Meanwhile, we have realized some problems through the following methods.
Interaction Map
Goal
Learn about the system quickly
Assess supported functionality
Identify difficulties or dead end
Interviews
Define users
What characteristics does someone need to possess to be a member of the target audience?
How frequently do they rely on the website?
Do they have other ways to search for product information?
Select diverse users
One web builder from German is responsible for the design and creation of the web.
Internal employees who work in the customer services
Outside sales representatives who order the products for their companies.
Define the Interview Sample
Contextual Inquiry
Open-ended questions
Two different questionnaires for internal and external users.
Affinity Wall
Personas
Comparative Evaluation
Second stage
The goal of the survey is to prove that the findings are representative. We figured out whether the findings are common issues which most users want to solve. From this stage, our findings became convinced.
Survey
Hypothesis
The majority of visitors use the Rexroth website to look up product information
Users may be frustrated with the website’s slow loading performance.
Search results may be different from users' expectations.
Third stage
These two tasks gave us time to evaluate the website with the design principles. These tests tried to realize the actual situation where people use the Rexroth website. If the findings from these two tasks aligned with the previous problems, I would be confident that our findings and recommendations are persuasive enough.
Heuristic Evaluation
How can we determine the importance of the problems?
Problems can be pointed out directly, and all members agree with them.
Higher average scores according to the individual assessment.
The two methods corroborate each other, making the results more convincing.
Useability Tests
Diverse users and Communication skills are two factors if you want to do a successful and reliable test.
Thoroughly understanding the role of users in their organization and their relationship with the Rexroth website.
Detailed and understandable task design.
Preparing accommodation for potential disabled users.
Final roundup
Finding 1
Recommendation 1
A number of steps to reach the end goal are repetitive.
Product shortcuts and minimizing clicks
Displaying all product information on one page.
Listing out some of the frequently viewed products
Finding 2
Recommendation 2
Product categorization seemed confusing.
Clear categorization for the products
Products and services should be categorized well, especially in the main page’s navigation bar.
Tutorial on navigating key parts of the website
Products should have clear subcategories to better classify the items
Finding 3
Recommendation 3
Search results aren't aligned with inputs & are oftentimes inaccurate.
Provide more flexibility for users while using the website.
Eliminate any broken links that are present on the website.
Use general terminology that can be understood by any user who visits the site.
Finding 4
Recommendation 4
Remove unnecessary images and items on the website.
Minimize or delete decorative features.
Remove unnecessary large images and/or reduce image size.
Allow users to minimize the images.
Reflection
Reflection
Usability: Users can conduct tasks smoothly on the platform.
Accessibility: Users with different roles can learn how to use the website.
Consistency: Reduce novice’s learning curve; Increase the efficiency of the experience.
These three points are important for B2B products. The users from the business may not have an interest in exploring all things in the platform, but the efficiency of the core features should be perfect for improving the user experience.
More in the future
Due to confidentiality issues, we do not know the real number of users of the Rexroth website. If possible, in the future, we highly recommend the corporate counts the number of daily active users and then recruit more participants to conduct surveys to improve the credibility of the findings.
In addition, the website is still going through updates. In this way, the current problems may be fixed, and the user experience may be improved. However, some unanticipated issues may come out along with the redesign and update. Accordingly, a double-diamond model is required during the whole process of web development and design.