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CALM.COM USABILITY REPORT

A usability report to analyze an existing app to find out its drawback and possible improvements

This project is a research project to practice the skill of user testing on an existing app and provide possible solutions.

PROJECT BRIEF

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

User testing an existing app to find out its drawback and solutions.

TOOLS

Microsoft Word, Usertesting.com, Lucidchart, Microsoft Excel

PROJECT LENGTH

Four weeks

PROJECT TYPE

Individual Project

FINISHED DATE

2/20/2020

SUMMARY OF THE USABILITY REPORT

After conducting the usability test of calm.com from the six testers, the overall function of the website is acceptable, but it has three drawbacks that need to change. The cons are the lack of search assistance in each section of the services product, such as music and meditation. The other drawback is the premium account information on the website is not noticeable; users sometimes feel hard to find the details of the benefits of the premium account.  The last is the arrangement of the free contents, and locked contents are confused for users when they are using the free trial. So it needs to add more search assistance such as a search bar on each page to help users to navigate their target contents. It also needs to put the premium account information link on somewhere more noticeable like the front page or at the sidebar of the page. Then the website needs to arrange the free content for users to find quickly in the free trial, like putting them on the first line of the content page so users would not need to go through all over the page to find their target contents.

INTRO: WHAT IS CALM.COM

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Calm.com is a website platform that provides sleeping aid and meditation products. Their target users are people who suffer from overwhelming stress and trouble to fall asleep. Its goal is to give an open window to perform relaxation and meditation activities to destress from sleeplessness and anxiety.

OVERVIEW

Calm.com is a website platform that provides sleeping aid and meditation products. Their target users are people who suffer from overwhelming stress and trouble falling asleep. Its goal is to give an open window to perform relaxation and meditation activities to destress from sleeplessness and anxiety. It also has a guided exercise class for the user to understand their methods to improve their sleep quality and emotional stability. The strong part of calm.com is the layout of the webpage design and the services that provide, and it has different backgrounds setting for users to customize because it can help users to better destress by meditation with their favorite scenes.  The weakness is the restriction of the free trial version and the lack of content updates, and it does not have frequently exchanging the material in each category so users might feel repentance after a period of use. Therefore, it needs to add more new content or updates to improve the experience to attract target users even more.

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CONCERNS OF THE CURRENT APP

 After reviewing the website, some aspects are not apparent for the users to operate, because the site is only available for the free trial version, and most parts of the contents are locked. Therefore, the part which I am going to test is to figure out whether the user has trouble locating their target service in the free trial version and get enough information on this website. The first thing to focus on is to observe the users identify their target content in their first-time experience. Every service website needs to let users navigate easily, then analyze whether it is noticeable for users to locate the benefits of the premium account.  Premium account information is essential for users to confirm their available services after their purchase. The last part is the ability for users to distinguish the locked contents and free content in their free trial experience, and this determined the usability of the free trial version for the new target user to locate their favorite materials.

METHOD: WHAT I DID TO IDENTIFY THE PROBLEMS

7 usability tasks

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  1. Log in as jasonhotman@hotmail.com, password user-testing. 

  2. Change the homepage background scene that could help you to destress. 

  3. Find and listen to a song that helps you to destress and feel calm. 

  4. Watch your favorite session video in Calm Body. 

  5. Watch the trailer of your favorite calm masterclass. 

  6. Try one of the guided meditations that could help you to feel calm and fall asleep. 

  7. Finds out the benefits for you to upgrade to a premium account.

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USER AND GOALS

The target users for this website are mostly people who have overwhelming stress and difficulty sleeping, such as students who have a lot of assignments to do or workers who are too busy to take a break in their daily activities. So there some question for screening the target participants:

1. How much does your sleep pattern bother you?

2. In the last month, how often did you have trouble sleeping?

3. Do you have a lot of stress from your overwhelming assignments, which could disturb your falling sleep quality?

The accepted answers are the participants who have trouble falling asleep or overwhelming stress, such as:

  1. Yes, my sleeping pattern always brother me.

  2. Very often, usually, twice a week.

  3. Yes, I have a lot of stress in my daily life/stress has disrupted my sleeping quality.

These participants’ needs are the target audience for calm.com to perform their meditation services. Mainly for the participants who want to improve in destress and sleeping quality, calm.com is one of the ultimate choices for them without the help of medicine.

MEASURES

The measurement of success and failure is the performance of the user’s ability to go through the process without help and instruction.

  1. A successful task is defined by the user who completed the task without skipping and asking for help.

  2. A successful task with difficulty is defined by the user who finds problems during the task and asks for instruction or help to complete the task successfully.

  3. A failed task is defined by the user who can not complete the task even with the help and instruction from the moderator, instruction website, and browser search function.


Additionally, there are other measurements to track users performance during the task, such as

  1. The amount of time for users to complete the task successfully without help and instruction.

  2. The number of errors for users to perform during the task.

  3.  Reaction and voice feedback after the user completes the task.

RESULT

  • The watch trailer button in the calm masterclass is not noticeable to the participants.

  • Participants need more free trial content in the calm body section.

  • The arrangement of the free contents and locked contents is poor for participants to identify.

  • The information on the benefit of a premium account is hard for users to find.

RESULTS - KEY FINDING #1

  • The watch trailer button in the calm masterclass is not noticeable to the participants.​

  • ​On every masterclass introduction page, the watch trailer icon is transparent but the play class icon is noticeable. When users click on the play class icon, the premium account requirement pops up and disrupts the user navigation. 

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RESULTS - KEY FINDING #2

  • The majority of the calm body videos are locked so the users report that there are not enough options for them to find their favorite calm body video in the free trial version.

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RESULTS - KEY FINDING #3

  • On every page of the service category, the premium account contents combined with the free trial content for the user to go through. Also, the icon of the locked content is small and unnoticeable with the free trial content.

Copy of Weidi_Usability Presentation (2)

RESULTS - KEY FINDING #4

  • Participants are more likely to search the information of the premium account in the profile section, and then they click subscribe to find the information about the premium account. But the result is that the subscribe page does not provide the premium account information to the users.

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IMPLICATIONS & SOLUTION

Calm.com may be missing out on valuable users

THERE ARE SOME WAYS TO AVOID THE PROBLEMS

IMPLICATION#1

  • Integrate the watch trailer and the play calm masterclass button together so users will not miss the trailer button anymore.

 

Exp: Youtube buys or rents in the  trailer video.

IMPLICATION#2

  • Add more free trial videos in the calm body section so users can have more using experience of the free trial version.

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Exp: Calm masterclass

IMPLICATION#3

  • Put premium account information on the side of the subscription page 


Exp: Spotify

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IN SUMMARY

  • The watch trailer button in the calm masterclass is not noticeable to the participants.

  • Participants need more free trial content in the calm body section.

  • The arrangement of the free contents and locked contents is poor to identify.

  • The information on the benefit of a premium account is hard for users to find.

  • The watch trailer button in the calm masterclass is not noticeable to the participants.

  • Add more free trial videos in the calm body section so users can have more using experience of the free trial version.

  • Rearrange the free content in each category to be clear and noticeable

  • Put premium account information on the side of the subscription page 

APPENDIX

THE SUCCESS RATE OF EACH SERVICE IN CALM.COM FOR THE USER TO LOCATE THEIR TARGET CONTENT.

The chart that represents the performance from the participants

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THE NUMBER OF USERS FINDS THE BENEFIT OF PREMIUM ACCOUNT IN EACH DIFFICULTY

The chart that represents the successful rate from the participants

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THE PERCENTAGE OF USERS WHO FEEL CONFUSED TO IDENTIFY THE LOCKED AND UNLOCKED CONTENTS IN THE FREE TRIAL.

The chart points out the percentage of confused users.

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USABILITY NOTE

The record chart shows every feedbacks from the participants.

Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1do-0RLCoz8gng2QcCp7zn9iX15mZtn6vqEl2F0ggacU/edit?usp=sharing

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