IMDb
DIG 245 Usability Test
Task 1
Check what shows have been renewed or canceled and scroll through the gallery
User was confused on how to complete this task initially, and warned me that he was not very familiar with IMDb. Though he started the task by looking around on the home page, he eventually had to go to the overhead menu, where he selected the “What’s on TV and Streaming” option. After being brought to that page, he was able to locate the “What TV Shows Have Been Renewed or Canceled?” gallery. While my intention was for him to find this gallery via the homepage (The gallery is located in the Featured Today section), he technically did complete the task. He didn’t seem bothered by the ads interrupting his scrolling through the gallery itself.
This task took him 1 minute and 22 seconds to complete.
Screenshot of where the renewed/cancelled show gallery is located on IMDb’s home page - the user suggested it be placed in its own section rather than in the “Featured today” section.
Task 2
Look at the list of people who were born today and select one of them
User scrolled through the home page until he saw the gallery with “Born today” as its heading, at which point he selected one of the portraits. Overall, he had little to no difficulty in completing this task.
This task took him 13 seconds to complete.
Screenshot of the Born Today gallery on IMDb’s home page. It is located near the bottom of the page in the “More to Explore” section.
Task 3
On their profile, select the highest rated project they have worked on
User scrolled slowly down the webpage, and again seemed confused at where he should go to sort the projects by rating. Thus, most of the time spent on this task was dedicated to looking for the “Show by” bar. Upon finding it, he quickly realized it could be used to filter the projects. Selecting the option to sort the projects specifically by rating did not cause him much difficulty either.
This task took him 1 minute and 36 seconds to complete.
Screenshot of the “Show by...” filter on a person’s profile that would allow the user to sort their projects by rating - the user found this button hard to locate.
Task 4
On that project's page, go to the reviews and filter to see only those that awarded the project 10 stars
User scrolled down the page of the TV episode he had selected in the previous task, stopping when he reached the section with the heading that read “User Reviews”. He then followed the link in the heading to the reviews page. Unlike in Task 3, this time finding the filter to sort the reviews by score was not difficult for him. He was later informed that scrolling down to find the user reviews was unnecessary, as a link to the reviews is also provided at the top-right of the page, just above the title of the project. He stated that he did not notice the link.
This task took him 53 seconds to complete.
Screenshot of a link at the top of the film/TV episode page that would have taken the user to the reviews - the subject did not notice this link.
Task 5
Now clear your “Recently viewed” history
User did not have any difficulty in locating his viewing history. Almost immediately, he scrolled to the bottom of the website and clicked on the “Clear all” link to the right of the “Recently viewed” heading.
This task took him 11 seconds to complete.
Screenshot of the users’ “Recently Viewed” history, along with the link to clear it. This section is located at the bottom of most IMDb pages.
Post-Tasks
Discussion of Results and Suggestions on How to Improve the Website
As stated before, my subject wasn’t familiar with IMDb in general, and thus was confused on the first task, but eventually worked it out. Other times, however, he was very familiar with what to do, like clearing his viewing history. He later noted completing these tasks was easier because he saw features that helped him complete the task ahead of time. Because this was one of the first times he used this site, the tasks he was confused on how to complete needed to be more learnable. Upon discovering that the “What’s been recently renewed and cancelled” gallery was in the featured today section, he said he thought it was what one of the NN/g articles would call an “unexpected location for content” and belonged in its own separate section.
He didn’t have any other personal suggestions for how the website could’ve been more learnable. When completing the fourth task, he didn’t notice that there was a link at the top right corner of the page for movies that would take him to the user reviews quicker. Hence I would also suggest making those links more noticeable (Suggestions from the Smashing Magazine article include underlining it and making it blue, though I also think making it bigger could help). Another possibility would be to include a table of contents.
While my usability subject didn’t have any suggestions for how the website design could have changed to allow him to complete task 3 quicker, I thought that the “Show by” filter could’ve been made more noticable, similar to the “User reviews” link. Since it’s the same shade as other parts of the page, it might not have resembled a button enough to him. Hence, in the words of the brutalism article, the button’s color and the font style could’ve been changed to make it more “pressable”.