Rachel~Anne Spencer

Modern consumers assess the effectiveness and usefulness of e-commerce websites based on experiences they have had with prototypical online stores like Amazon, Airbnb, and Spoonflower. Phydeaux, a local physical pet store, has recently ventured into an e-commerce platform. The purpose of this usability study was to assess whether users confidently recognize online purchasing from Phydeaux is an option and to determine if there are usability issues present in adding items to the cart, removing items, and locating items at adjacent stores.

​

Four participants were run through a usability test in the Digital Media Lab at SILS, each being asked to complete four tasks. Both self-reported measures (e.g. user satisfaction, ease of use) and calculated metrics (e.g. time on task, number of page views) were recorded.

​

Results indicate that participants struggled (e.g. 50% success rate) to navigate to Phetch from the Phydeaux’s main website and that participants were challenged with finding an ideal path for determining the availability of an out-of-stock item in one store in an adjacent store. The cognitive load in both these areas resulted in significantly larger amounts of time spent on task, requiring the reflective question be posed: What percentage of users would abandon this information seeking activity?

​

Recommended next steps for these critical issues include re-architecting the site so that Phetch is the main landing page and consolidating the three stores’ separate sites into one integrated e-commerce platform that represents three physical store’s inventories. Less resource-intense resolutions are also posed in the main contents of this report, which is available upon request.