Assignment: Usability test of visual designs
The International Student Identity Card (ISIC) is the only internationally accepted student ID card. Users of the card can benefit from more than 41,100 discounts in 106 countries worldwide.
In 2008 ISIC started developing a new structure and visual design for their site. In June 2008 ISIC asked User Intelligence to user test their redesign ideas. They wanted to do a usability test to find out whether their target audience understood what the site was about, if they understood how they could obtain the card and if the user experience reflected the positioning of the site.
Method used: Usability Testing on location
As the timeline for this project was very tight we decided to take a different approach. Instead of arranging the recruitment beforehand we conducted the testing and recruitment on location. We were confident that a youth hostel would provide enough suitable participants therefore we arranged the Stay OK hostel Vondelpark as test location. All tests were conducted at the youth hostel with international students that were visiting Amsterdam.
Results: Good results within a single day of testing
As a team of two, one recruiter and one interviewer, we recruited 13 participants and conducted 13 sessions of 15 minutes. During the test we used a semi-structured script to ask for impressions and follow browsing behavior. The results of a full day of testing, together with recommendations on how to solve the problems found, were presented to the ISIC redesign team.