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

1. 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
2. What would be the next step you would take to install the plugin on your site? [Verbal Response]
3. How was your experience finding this plugin? [Verbal Response]
4. Locate the Plugin Search Field and search for a plugin that will add an image slider to your website.
5. Are you able to make an informed decision from the search results page? Why, or why not? [Verbal Response]
6. If you haven’t already, click on the plugin that you like best to view the details.
7. 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]
8. What are the top 3-4 things on this page that influence your decisions when selecting a plugin? [Verbal Response]
9. 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

User Testing Round 1

Notes

1. [1:48] After browsing, user decides to search for ‘SEO’
2. [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. [3:17] User still doesn’t seem to have enough information to choose a plugin directly from search results page.
4. [4:21] User clicked to check negative reviews and ended up at older layout for plugins reviews.
5. [6:11] User is highly influenced by ratings above all else.
6. [7:14] User checks “last updated” as well at this point.
7. [8:33] User would download plugin and figure out how to install it. He didn’t see any instructions in the ‘description’.
8. [9:09] User uses ‘search’ as an option when he’s “stuck”. He prefers browsing first, and then later searches.
9. [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.
10. [12:21] Not enough info on search results page to make an informed decision.
11. [15:09] User says layout is pretty typical on the Detail page.
12. [16:10] Bringing negative reviews closer to the top would be helpful for this user.
13. [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?
14. [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.

#design, #plugin-directory, #user-testing