Findings - Garrett Minster

Before I begin the summary of Sarah's video, I would like to give short ratings for each of the three test videos to help discern which user had best user experience using Fisher Price's website and which had the worst experience using the site. Naga Puvvula seemed to have the best experience, Sarah Puvvula had the second best, and Daniel Fair had the worst experience. Sarah encountered more issues during her experience with Fisher Price's website than Naga but did not experience as many issues as Daniel or express as much disdain for the site. With that out of the way, let's summarize the significant findings from Sarah's video:

Video 1 - Sarah Puvvula

At 7:01 of Sarah's video, we are met with our first major finding/usability issue. Upon first visiting Fisher Price's homepage, Sarah was greeted with an unnecessary popup asking her to enter a sweepstakes for a gift card. Sarah found this popup mildly annoying, so in this case, I will give this finding a rating of 1 - Cosmetic issue only. At 7:24, Sarah mentions how easy it was for her to locate products for a specific age group, thus making a good first impression of the site. Unfortunately for Fisher Price, this does not last long. At 7:55 Sarah attempts to sort a page of toddler and preschool toys by their review ratings. Upon viewing the sorting options however, she cannot sort the products by reviews or by star ratings. Instead, they are sorted under "recommended" which was not clear to Sarah, as other sites simply sort by customer ratings. Given that the option is still there, but not labelled the same as other sites Sarah visits, I will rate this finding a 2 - Minor usability problem. At 9:23, Sarah decides to view a page labelled, "Top Holiday Gifts" a highly important page on Fisher Price's site given the approaching Holiday season. Sarah considers this an excelent inclusion as she expects this section to display products that may be on sale. After clicking the link, the page did not load correctly and required refreshing the page for the content to correctly load. Daniel also experienced a loading error like this during his video. This was fixed with a quick refresh of the page, and did not appear again, so I will also give this finding a rating of 2 - Minor usability problem. At 10:50 Sarah and I discussed one of the issues on Fisher Price's website I discovered during my independent evaluation of the site. Many of the products on Fisher Price's website have age ratings in their preview images, making it easier for customers to see if a product is suitable for their child, while many others do not. This inconsistency in the site's design wound up deterring Sarah from wanting to purchase a Thomas the Tank Engine toy from Fisher Price. Given the severity of Sarah's reaction, I will give this finding a rating of 3 - Major usability problem. At 13:17 of the video, Sarah searches the word "Yoda" in the search box after seeing a shot of Grogu from Star Wars. After searching for Yoda, the site auto corrected "Yoda" to "yoga" and showed results of two yoga themed Barbie toys. This was frustrating to Sarah as though this character is officially named, "The Child" or "Grogu" she expected to see toys of him as many refer to this character as "Baby Yoda." This is a flaw regarding the site's search engine as well as the tags that are used for products on Fisher Price's site. For this finding, I will rate it a 3 - Major usability problem. At 15:33, Sarah was confused upon being redirected to Mattel's homepage after searching through other sections of the site and using the search engine. This is due to Fisher Price's website being a small part of Mattel's site alongside brands like Hot Wheels and Barbie. This is also an issue Daniel ran into, which I will discuss more when I get to his video. Given the confusion this caused both Sarah and Daniel, this will likely confuse a majority of Fisher Price's site visitors. For that reason, I will also rate this finding a 3 - Major usability problem. At 16:15, Sarah is asked to use the filters at the top of a product page to sort the products by their age group. Sarah needed to be directed to the area of the page in order to move forward and mentioned that it would have been better if all of the page filters were grouped together. The filters themselves did not present much trouble to Sarah in the end, so I will rate this finding a 2 - Minor usability problem. After viewing the filters, Sarah noticed some issues regarding info for a Power Wheels Thomas toy at 17:41. She could not find any information on the product such as pricing or availability from online retailers after selecting the product. She also found it annoying that she had to select a product to view the price. Daniel experienced a similar issue, and for both of these user's experiences, I will give this finding a rating of 4 - Usability catastrophe. At 18:47, Sarah is asked to locate information on Fisher Price's website regarding warranty information. It wound up taking Sarah three minutes to locate warranty information on the site. She looked in every default location she could think to look, and she attempted using the site's search engine to locate warranty info to no avail. It got so bad that I was worried that either they had removed warranty info from the site, or I had misremembered them having product warranties. By the time she located the warranty info, Sarah was audibly fed up. Of all of the findings from Sarah's test, I believe this was the most surprising. I am giving this finding a well-deserved rating of 4 - Usability catastrophe. At 23:07, Sarah attempts to purchase a toy from Fisher Price's website but is instead asked to purchase the toy from Walmart's website instead. After viewing a different toy, she is able to make a purchase directly from Fisher Price's online store. Sarah goes on to say that she dislikes being redirected to another website to make a purchase. She prefers having a single shopping cart and not having to order through Walmart or have to pick up a product from Walmart. Though this may work for other users, given Sarah's frustration I will give this finding a rating of 3 - Major usability problem. At 27: 53, Sarah discusses the "For Parents" section of Fisher Price's website. She believes the section is too busy, has too much text, and the information is not laid out efficiently. Sarah goes as far to say that she does not feel prompted to view any of the For Parents articles due to its poor presentation. As a result, I will rate this finding a 3 - Major usability problem. At 28:47, Sarah investigates the product recall page. Sarah believes that Fisher Price has a handle on this as first and is able to locate the page easily from the link at the top of the home page. After viewing the page however, Sarah becomes displeased with it. She cannot do a proper product search in case something she purchased was recalled, and the only information given on recalled products are product names and serial numbers. Sarah then goes on to mention that a product's serial number could easily rub off or the sticker could fall off and that the page is lacking in reference images. You would be more likely to recognize a product you purchased by a photo rather than a name or serial number. For these reasons, I will give this finding a rating of 4 - Usability catastrophe.

Video 2 - Naga Puvvula

As discussed above, Naga had the best experience of the three testers. Despite his positive attitude toward Fisher Price's website, he still ran into a few issues, and I noticed some other issues while reviewing his test video. At 7:26, Naga mentions that Fisher Price's website looks promising at first and believes that the shortcuts for shopping by age group will save users time. Naga also liked the use of the shortcuts for categories of products like baby gear and the use of age ratings in the product preview images like Sarah did. Strangely, he was the only tester of mine that was not exposed to the popup regarding the gift card contest. This is likely since he used the same computer and browser as Sarah. At 9:37 however, Naga views a pair of toys that do not show the age ratings in their preview images. As was the case with Sarah, this finding will be rated 3 - Major usability problem. At 10:49, Naga searches the word, "Elephant" and is shown five results. One of these results however is a Mega Construx Halo toy. This toy is not suitable for younger children as the toy includes choking hazards. Naga's search also resulted in the header changing from Fisher Price to Mattel. Both of these findings confused Naga, and neither were something he liked to see, so I will give this finding a rating of 3 - Major usability problem. At 12:04, Naga views a listing for a plush elephant. Naga did not find any issue with this product page as the information seemed clear enough to him and he liked the inclusion of customer reviews and photos. At 12:34, Naga discusses a Power Wheels Jeep that appeared in a results screen after searching for "Spider Man" toys. Naga did not believe that the Jeep was a Spider Man toy and believed it was a mistake like the Mega Construx toy from before. The Jeep actually is a Spider Man toy as the Jeep is colored red and blue and is decorated in Spider Man stickers. Despite recognizing the Spider Man design elements, Naga still found the Jeep a confusing result, which was surprising to me. Naga also believed that 40 percent of the search results needed to be improved. Since Naga did have trouble believing this search result was correct, I will give this finding a rating of 2 - Minor usability problem. At 15:09, Naga compliments the wide variety of toys that Fisher Price has available on their site, which was the highest praise the site received throughout my tests. At 15:52, Naga believes he made a mistake after discovering that some of the filters were hidden behind a button labelled, "Show Filters." It is never a good thing when a user believes he made a mistake when he did nothing wrong. I believe that this button is mislabeled, and should instead be labeled, "Show more" as other filters are visible. I will give this finding a rating of 2 - Minor usability problem. Beyond this issue, Naga liked all of the filtering options made available to him. At 18:02, Naga is asked to look for warranty information on the site. Naga was able to locate the warranty info the fastest of my three testers and was able to locate this section based on previous experience with other sites. Though he believed some things should be changed, Naga believed that his experience was sufficient. At 20:58, Naga decides to purchase an Imaginext Darth Vader. Unlike Sarah, Naga liked the inclusion of the multiple sources he could purchase the toy through which was surprising to me. He also liked that Fisher Price's website compared the prices between the three retailers. At 22:26, Naga decides to purchase an Imaginext Batmobile. After viewing the available retailers however, he was surprised to see that the retailers were not consistent with those for the Darth Vader toy. From my experience, this inconsistency is common on Fisher Price's website, which is likely inconvenient for some users. Despite this, Naga did not have much of a problem with this inconsistency or Fisher Price's own webstore. Since Naga did not see much issue with the site's inconsistency, I will rate this finding a 2 - Minor usability problem. At 25:54, Naga mentions that the "For Parents" button had caught his eye, a very positive response. At 26:45 however, Naga reaches the same conclusion as Sarah, the For Parents section is too busy. Once again, I will give this finding a rating of 3 - Major usability problem. At 27:33, Naga is able to quickly locate the Product Recalls section of the site, which he enjoyed the convenience of. Unlike Sarah however, Naga did not believe that there was anything wrong with the Product Recall section of the site and believed that the information they presented was sufficient enough.

Video 3 - Daniel Fair

As discussed before, Daniel had the worst user experience of my three testers. He experienced more issues than Sarah and he had fewer good things to say about Fisher Price's website than Naga. At 6:02, Daniel is met with the same gift card contest popup as Sarah. Daniel does not like the use of popup windows but does mention that this could be useful to some people. As was the case with Sarah, I will rate this finding a 1 - Cosmetic issue only. Like Naga, Daniel liked the age rating shortcuts being shown on the home screen which he considered very convenient as he may need to purchase gifts for young children in the near future. At 7:28, Daniel notices the "Product Recall" banner at the top of the home screen. Daniel was the only tester who found issue with this banner's placement. He considered this a deterrent to interested customers as the news of recent recalls could scare some users away, which was a surprise to me, but really shouldn't have. Daniel did however like the convenience of the location of the Recalls shortcut at the top of the screen. Given Daniel's feedback of the Product Recall banner, I will rate this finding a 3 - Major usability problem. At 8:06, Daniel mentions how much he likes the use of the Top Holiday Gifts shortcut on the home screen as knowing what the top gifts are that Holiday season is very convenient. He also liked the section of the home screen where you could sort by popular brand such as Thomas and Friends and Power Wheels. At 8:40, Daniel mentions how inconvenient it is that the Power Wheels product page does not mention the prices of the toys, which Sarah also found annoying. Once again, I while give this finding a rating of 4 - Usability catastrophe. At 10:09, Daniel decides to search under "Power Wheels" and see if he can find a price for a Power Wheels toy on the site. As was the case with Sarah, Daniel finds it annoying that Fisher Price's website is less of a shopping website and more a site full of links to other shopping sites. After selecting a Power Wheels car, Daniel selects the "Where to Buy" button. He is immediately confused that there are no online listings and believes it should instead default to the "Locate Store" option. After entering his location, Daniel visits the websites for three local Walmart stores that are supposed to have this toy in stock. After viewing each store's hyperlink however, each link resulted in an error screen on Walmart's website. This was one of the most surprising findings of my tests and the worst issue any of my testers experienced. Daniel also thought it was annoying that he may have to call a store for availability, as it is not very convenient for him. Unsurprisingly, this finding gets a rating of 4 - Usability catastrophe. At 12:52, Daniel decides to view the Hot Wheels section of the site, unaware that he had switched to a different site. Like Naga, Daniel liked the overall look and features of the product page he viewed which showed customer reviews and photos. At 13:35, Daniel mentions that he wishes that the reviews section could show what percentage of the reviews were 5-stars, 4-stars, and so on as other shopping sites do. Given the inconsistency that Fisher Price's website has with the lack of this feature, I will rate this finding a 2 - Minor usability problem. At 15:56, Daniel inspects the filters available to him while searching under products for newborns. Daniel notices the useless inclusion of a brand filter which only has one option, "Fisher Price." This finding does not infringe on any of the other filters available, so I will simply rate it a 1 - Cosmetic issue only. At 16:22, Daniel notices the same issue that made Naga believe he had made a mistake. You have to select a button to reveal all of the filters. Daniel goes on to mention that we have the technology to allow a site to tell how wide a viewport is, and automatically expand or retract the filter section. Daniel also believes that many of the filters are useless such as "Milestones" and the inclusion of the age filters on this page. As was the case with Naga, I will rate this finding a 2 - Minor usability problem. At 17:47, Daniel is asked to look for warranty information. Sarah had a hard time looking for warranty information, and Naga had an easy time. It took Daniel a similar amount of time to find warranty info as Sarah and he looked in many of the same places as Sarah. Daniel also looked in the search box and ran into similar issues as Sarah when she searched under Yoda. This leads me to believe the auto correct in the search engine is a bigger problem than I hand initially believed. Just like Sarah, I will rate Daniel's findings in searching for warranty info a 4 - Usability catastrophe. At 21:44, Daniel decides to view a toy Darth Vader. Like Sarah, Daniel mentions his disdain for using links to other online store fronts. He also expresses confusion as to why he could not find any links under the Power Wheels toys. Daniel also noticed that Fisher Price's website did not update the price of the Darth Vader toy at Walmart, which was very surprising. All three retailers were selling the toy for the same sale price, but Fisher Price's website labelled the Walmart price incorrectly as full price, a difference of 49 dollars. Daniel's experience with the Darth Vader toy wound up driving him nuts, so I will rate Daniel's experience a 4 - Usability catastrophe. At 23:45, Daniel experiences a similar loading error as Sarah did early in her test. As was the case with Sarah's test, I will rate this finding a 2 - Minor usability problem. At 24:07, Daniel tries to see the difference between product listings for 3- to 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds. Upon clicking the button however, nothing seemed to change. Daniel did not seem too bothered by this issue, so I will rate this finding a 2 - Minor usability problem. Shortly after this error, Daniel stumbled upon a toy his children would have loved, only to be greeted by a 404. This may have been the biggest surprise of all of my tests and one of the biggest errors. Daniel simply replied, "Man, I do not like this site at all!" This finding rightfully deserves a rating of 4 - Usability catastrophe. At 25:55, Daniel is able to view products from Fisher Price's online store, the only products on the site that list their price in the listing. Daniel believed that Fisher Price's webstore was the best designed section of the site. Despite his positive opinion, Daniel still could not recommend Fisher Price's site at this point of the test. At 27:33, Daniel is asked to find educational/informative resources on the site, which he is able to locate quickly. Daniel's expressed little trust in Fisher Price's informative content however due to the fact that this information was being presented by a brand of toys as much of the content felt more like extended advertising to him. Daniel was also surprised with how little content there was in this section of the site. As a result, I will label these findings a 3 - Major usability problem. At 29:40, Daniel is asked to find information regarding product recalls, which he was able to make quick work of. Daniel did not approve of the Mattel Global Consumer Report header the recalls page used, as it mentioned inappropriate information like promotions, and featured a search bar he could not use to search for recalled products. Daniel also found it hard to believe that the information presented was up to date or included all current Fisher Price product recalls. Like Sarah's issues with the recall page, I will rate Daniel's findings a 4 - Usability catastrophe.