Usability test for chef

Erin Sorensen
Introto Web Publishing
UsabilityAnalysisBasedonUserFieldTesting
Usability Test for Chef’d.com
Test Preparation
During Task one, building a spoon university meal plan and determining the weekly cost,
I immediately found some usability issues. Right from the start, you cannot build a Spoon
University meal plan if you cannot find the Spoon University tab. The easiest way I was able to
find it was to just use the search bar and type, “Spoon U.” This becomes an issue for students
who do not know about Spoon University and do not even know to look for it. The Spoon
University Meal Plan homepage does not have an interactive button above the page fold (on
most computers depending on browser and possible plug-ins). Users must scroll below to find
more instructions or information about Spoon University. Once they scroll there is a “start meal
plan,” button as well as what Spoon U is and what you get when you order a Spoon U box. The
page takes you to a section that has you select any possible allergies. After selecting any
allergies, the page extends to another question “I like meals that include.” I found this page a
little difficult to understand. Unlike the allergies question where all the options were white and
not selected yet, the meals options were all orange as in they had already been selected. (Pictures
shown below) I found this to be confusing to know if you should deselect the ones you do not
one or the ones you do. Overall, I do not think they used effective fold/ page space for their
opening sections of Spoon U. It is easy to find the total price after they give you the meals in
your meal plan.

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The Spoon University was not designed very well for the task number two of finding a
spicy meal. I automatically assumed to use the search bar to find a spicy meal. When I found
options come up through the search bar it took me out of spoon University and to go back I had
to restart the entire meal plan. After much frustration I thought maybe I could look at the
ingredients and see which ingredients that I know would add spice to a meal. That is when I
discovered that when you click on the meal it has info such as difficulty, spiciness, and time and
it gives a description of all. This is not a very easy way to dived spicy vs non-spicy meals for
those that are looking for specifics.
I felt that finding the Grab ‘N’ Go’scalories was not nearly as confusing or time
confusing, but it could be much more user friendly. A natural human response is to click on
things even if we do not know if it is interactive. I was able to find out that once you click on the
menu item a description and more pictures come up with separate tabs that include, ingredients,
allergens, from your kitchen, and nutrition facts. I was able to infer form that that I would be able
to find calories within the nutrition facts tab. Though if I am trying to stay within a calorie limit
for every meal and snack that is not an easy process to check every item. Once you have

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expanded the meal to find out more information it is a natural response to go back by pushing the
back button in the browser. If you hit the back button in the browser it takes you back to the first
page of the create your meal plan page. There is a small gray “X” in the corner that you have to
use to exit out of the expansion to go back to where you were. This is very frustrating.
I did not feel that finding when a meal would be delivered to be difficult, just somewhat
painful in the sense that you have to jump over hurdles to get there. It was a good guess that I
would need to go to checkout to see shipping options, and there I would find the dates that the
meal plans would arrive. However, this is not very user friendly. You had to push the “Add to
cart,” button then click check out and fill out your address. Then it would finally tell you how
shipping worked and when it would arrive at your residence. It should be much easier for
consumers to figure out basic information about the products they are purchasing and when they
are going to arrive.
Choosing Participants
Tester 1 Hallie Sidney
My first tester is a freshman at Northwest Missouri State, Hallie Sidney; she is a
reasonable tester because she is young (19), a University student, and a volleyball player at the
University. The fact that she plays volleyball shows that she cares about clean and healthy
eating. Sidney told me that she uses food to fuel her body, that shows she cares about what she is
putting into her body and makes her a reasonable tester. She has heard of sites like blue apron
through friends, but she herself or her family has not used meal kit websites. Sidney’s activities
include going to class, workouts, sleeping, going to the library, and hanging out with friends. She
is very busy so being able to have meal kits could help shorter her time cooking, planning, or

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preparing foods. She estimated that she spends approximately 50 hours a week on the internet.
She said there is about a 70-30% split when it comes to social media usage vs. browsing. She
also considers herself a high-experience web browser. All of these qualities make her a very
reasonable candidate to test the usability of Chef’d.
Environment for Tester 1
 The test was conducted in Hudson-Perrin dormitory halls in her room. This spot
was chosen because she uses the internet most often when she is in her dorm
room. Testing there helped to ensure that she would be comfortable and use her
natural web browsing techniques.
 The physical environment had a lot going on. In the beginning, there was a slight
distraction from her roommate who was gathering her things to go to the library,
rustling papers, books, etc. This occurred while I was reading the script to the
tester. Throughout the test, I started to notice that the window was open, because I
could hear kids yelling outside in the parking lot goofing around. The light was
not on in the room, but it was mid-morning so lots of natural light came in
through the window. The room was average temperature. The tester sat on her bed
as she normally would while browsing the internet. The tester put her phone away
shortly after I began reading the script so that was not a distraction.
 The tester was using a school issued HP laptop, and the laptop was connected to
the university Wi-Fi. The tester used Google Chrome, and did not have any
plugins but did have a few favorites saved. Which included quizlet sites she had
saved as well as her email home page.

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Tester 2 Mackenzie Daffer
I chose Mackenzie Daffer a sophomore at Northwest Missouri State University as my
second tester. Daffer is 20 years old, she is a full time student, and she is a member of the
Northwest track team. She is extremely passionate about fitness, and eating clean and healthy.
She is currently cutting to try to get a few pounds lighter before the outdoor season begins. This
makes Daffer an extremely reasonable tester that fits inside the bounds of someone who would
use Spoon University from Chef’d. Daffer is familiar with meal kit sites though she has never
used any due to the cost of the meal kits. Daffer said her day usually consists of workouts,
practice, classes, doing homework, and hanging out with her friends and boyfriend. Like Tester,
one she is very busy so the idea of having a prepared meal kit for dinner and quick snacks is a
very appealing concept to Daffer. She estimated that she spends about 65 hours a week using the
internet. She said the split between social media and web browsing was probably about 80-20%.
She rated herself as a high-experience user of the internet.
Environment for Tester 2
 I conducted the usability test for tester two in her apartment at her kitchen table.
That is the place where she did the most internet browsing and she felt the most in
her element.
 The lighting came from a ceiling fixture in the kitchen there was not any natural
light coming into the house at the time because it was dark outside. There were no
distractions in this test, roommates were either not home or quiet in their rooms,
the tester never picked up her cell phone, and she was focused on the tasks.

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 She was using an HP University issued laptop. She was connected to her
apartment’s Wi-Fi which was from Sudden link. Daffer used Firefox unlike
Tester 1 who used Chrome. There did not seem to be much of a difference though
because neither testers had any plug-ins that would change the page fold.
Initial Site Thoughts
Right away tester 1 said “Generation Y” I didn’t realize at first that the home page of
Spoon University actually said “Generation Y,” but both testers noticed it very quick off the bat
and said something about it. Tester 1 seemed to be checking the website out in more detailed she
talked about the logo of Chef’d and the knife in the logo. While tester 2 seemed to be more
concerned with the food and the options available. She immediately said, “Wow this food on the
front page looks freaking good.” Tester 1 thought the home page was “easy to navigate” and like
that, there were customer testimonials to give her an idea of other people like her who used the
meal kits. Tester 2 was not as much of a fan of the front page of Spoon U. She felt that they did
not include enough information. Tester 2 said, “You can’t even really see much information or
how to start unless you start scrolling down the page, I want to automatically know what the site
does and not have to go scrolling for it.” Tester 1 noticed many “start your meal plan buttons,”
while tester 2 did not quite understand why they had so many. Tester 2 said, “I get they want
people to buy their food but there isn’t a start your meal plan button right away, so why so many
when you scroll down?”
Both testers thought the site looked like young people with the colors and food choices
designed it. The testers also thought that the food looked very good, and were wondering how
many meal options they would have. When you scroll down the homepage, it explains that they

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deliver the meals right to your door with all the ingredients. Both testers were very excited about
the fact that they not only deliver, but also that you get everything you need to make the meal.
Surprisingly, they both made a comment about not having tabs in the Spoon U site. Tester 1 said,
“Why don’t the tabs change from Chef’d to Spoon U, it would be easier to figure everything out
with tabs.” Another thing that seemed to catch user’s eyes was the statement about “all things
food at four-year Universities across the country.” Both of my testers again made a comment
about this, they wondered if students from two-year programs could not order from spoon U.
This could be seen as a usability issues, because if they were two-year University students and
didn’t notice that there were restrictions on what qualifies for Spoon U and got all the way to
check out only to find they don’t qualify that might deter further users or create bad reviews.
Task 1: Build a Spoon University meal plan and determine the total weekly cost
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 1 3 2
Success Rate 75% 100% 87.5%
Highlights
1.) Both of my testers were also frustrated with not having any prices on the Grab ‘N’
Go’s snacks, and the fresh fruits. Tester 1 was all confused “All $13 meals,” she
wanted to see more meals with different price points, but she was not able to find any.

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Tester 2 was getting frustrated and grimacing, when I asked her what was causing her
to do that she said, “Who wants to buy a bunch of things (Grab ‘N’ Go’s) when you
don’t even know how much they cost?” Adding prices and price options will help
keep diverse users, and make the page much easier for users to understand.
2.) Getting the meal plan had its struggles, but the most frustrating aspect for tester 1 was
the inability to fit the meal kit within the $65 budget. Both testers to fix these issues
just kept going back and choosing a fewer number of meals a week until they got to
one meal per week, which was $62. Tester 2 said, “Wouldn’t it be easier if I could
just put in how much money I have to spend and then they give me options from
there.” Tester 1 said, “It’s a pain in my a** to have to keep going back to the previous
page and changing the number of meals that I get per week.”
3.) Both testers would get very frustrated when they would click on a meal to know more
about that meal, and the click the back button and it would take them back to the
homepage and start fresh. “It’s really confusing because that’s like my natural
thought is to click the back button, and you can barely even see that small x,” tester 2
said this after the second time she had to start over. Tester 1 said, “If this happens
again I’m going to throw my damn computer.” The “x” is not very easy to see or to
know that is what you must click to go back to where you were.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem I encountered from my testers on the first task is the way you build
a meal kit. They were both very frustrated with the way to add, delete, or swap meals. For
example, Tester 2 really wanted to get rid of some Grab ‘N’ Go’s and possibly add another meal
instead, although she was not able to do that. There also were not any prices on the Grab ‘N’

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Go’s so it was not easy to understand what to swap or add. Tester 2 said, “So are all the Grab ‘N’
Go’s the same prices then?” In addition, to change the number of meals you have to go back to
the previous page rather than just getting rid of a meal on your meal kit page. When trying to
sort through the meal plan and change how many meals a week she got tester one said, “If this
was real and you weren’t here I probably would have just exited out and found another meal kit
site.” There needs to be much easier tools to change and edit your meal plan, the testers were
very frustrated with how little control they had over what they were getting in the meal kit and
how much they were getting. About the only control, they had were how many meals they
wanted, and what kind of meals they wanted those to be. If each meal, Grab ‘N’ Go had an “x”
in the corner to get rid of that meal and an “add meal button” I think the experience would have
been much better for the testers.
Alignment to Heuristic: Help and Documentation
Help and Documentation: Even though it is better if the system can be used without
documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information
should be easy to search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not
be too large. Since this build, your meal kit page is not very easy to navigate and make changes
there needs to be help and documentation to explain what the user needs to do. As I wrote earlier
it was so confusing one of my testers said, “If this was real and you weren’t here I probably
would have just exited out and found another meal kit site.” That shows me that something needs
to change because users are very confused and not happy with the way the website is running. A
simple way to help is by help and documentation with instructions to the user. For example
something as simple as, “Now that you have selected your dietary preferences you can swap
meals, check nutrition facts and descriptions by clicking on the meal, or change the number of

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meals per week by going back to the previous page.” Simple yet it answers questions that would
be very helpful to the users while navigating and trying to complete the task of building a meal
plan.
Task 2: You have the budget to cover one extra meal per week, but you want it to be a spicy
meal. Determine your spicy meal options and choose one meal that you are willing to prepare.
Average Satisfaction 1 2 1.5
Success Rate 100% 100% 100%
Highlight
1.) Both of my testers went to the search bar for this task. Tester 1 typed in “spicy” while
tester 2 typed in “spicy meals.” The search bar took them out of Spoon University and
showed them regular meals throughout the whole Chef’d site that weren’t even available
to Spoon U customers. Tester 1 went back to Spoon U and immediately went to the help
button in the bottom right hand corner of the page. She typed in “Can I have more swap
options,” She did not find much help there; she said you had to go through a long process
and check your email to be able to get more options. Her response to this was, “Well that
seems a little extreme.” Tester 2 was very frustrated that there were not meals split up
into sections like a “spicy” section she felt it was very difficult to figure out what was
what even after she found the “spiciness” tab after clicking on the meal. Both finished the
task, but had confusion and frustration while trying to complete it.

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2.) There needs to be a better definition of what is “mild spiciness.” Both testers wanted to
know how they were basing their spiciness. Tester 2 said, “my mom and I both like spicy
foods, but what I think is spicy she thinks is mild, how am I supposed to know which it
is?” Tester 1 said, “How spicy is mildly spicy?” There should be some sort of chart or
something to base the amount of spiciness. Tester 1 also said that it might keep her from
buying a spicy meal because she would not be able to tell exactly how spicy it was and
she would not want to order something that she would not like. This makes it frustrating
for users, because they want to try the food but are nervous to pay all that money only to
not fully understand what they are getting. Both testers were very surprised that there was
no further navigation to click on spicy and get a description of what it meant exactly.
3.) Both users were disappointed with the availability of spicy meals, though this is not
necessarily considered a “usability” issue it becomes one when a consumer is searching
for some spicy meals and has a very difficult time finding any information on spicy
meals, or even if they had any spicy meals at all. I feel that another set of questions in the
beginning of building the meal kit would help to be able to get more meals that actually
match with what the consumers are wanting. Tester 1 said, “They have one meal that is
barely spicy on all of my options, how the hell am I supposed to get spicy food if there
isn’t any (a lot of laughing)?”
Biggest Problem
I think the biggest problem with this task is the available navigation options. It seems like
once you get into the meal kit page that they made for you, you are stuck. It is confusing to
decide where to go and what to do to find meals you really like, or find spicy meals in this case.
By adding more navigation options, buttons, and clear help the users experience becomes much

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easier and more enjoyable which usually means spending more money. Adding tabs to each
meal even so right off the bat you can see the spiciness of each meal and that scale of spiciness
compared to other popular meals.
If I wanted to get this chili Mac n’ Cheese but I don’t like spicy
foods, how am I going to know if it is spicy or not? Just by looking at it it gives me no
information about what is in the chili other than what I can see in the picture. Then my only
noticeable navigation button is the “Swap Meal” button. This is not providing enough
information to consumers to really get exactly what they want out of their meal plans. Adding
more navigation will make a better user experience for the consumers to truly build their perfect
meal kit.
Alignment to Heuristics: Recognition Rather than Recall “I know what I need to do here”
Recognition rather than recall: Minimize the user’s memory load by making objects,
actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of
the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable
whenever appropriate. I highlighted “by making objects, actions, and options visible” because
that is exactly what Chef’d needs to do. Chef’d should not assume that the consumer would
automatically know to click on the meal to get more pictures and information. One of my testers
took several minutes before she first realized you could click on the meals. If it is not a clear

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navigation or action button, it will be more difficult for users to figure out. By adding actions and
options that clearly do something the users will better understand the meal kits and how to build
a meal kit they will enjoy the most.
Task 3: Ensure none of your meals, “Grab ‘n’ Go’s or snacks is more than 450 calories per
serving. If the calorie count is too high, swap the item for another.
Average Satisfaction 5 3 4
Highlights
1.) Both Tester 1 and 2 were surprised that they did not display the calorie count of the
meals right on the front with the pictures. Tester 1 said, “I know it is all supposed to be
healthy, but what if I actually want to know right away how many calories each is so I
can build my calorie count for that day?” Tester 2 said, “For a healthy eating website they
don’t highlight how healthy it is like they should.” The testers would have rather seen the
calorie total right away.

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2.) Both tester did not like how the “Nutrition Facts” tab was below the fold. Not only did
you have to click on the meal to find Nutrition Facts, but you also had to scroll down to
search for it. Tester 2 said, “I might have gotten frustrated with trying to find it that I
might not have even scrolled down to find it.” Tester 1 was very frustrated because she
could not believe that they would “hide the nutrition facts on a healthy eating website.”
3.) Both Testers were surprised there was not already some type of filter that would allow
people to select a calorie range for their meals. Tester 2 said, “Wouldn’t it be so much
easier if they just had different filters to select different options like the spiciness and
how many calories you were wanting in each option.” Tester 2 said, “You know how on
Amazon you can put like price low to high, well they need a calorie count low to high
thing.” The theme for issues from this step seemed to be navigation difficulties.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem both testers encountered was the trouble to get to the nutrition facts,
even if you know how to get to them it is a pain to get there. If you are swapping out meals
because of calorie count not only do you have to go find he calorie amount of all your meals, but
then you must go back and swap it out for a new meal and repeat the whole process to find the
calorie count of that new meal. The nutrition facts do not seem to be a huge importance to
Chef’d or they would probably try to make it more accessible to users. Tester 1 said, “Just
because they specialize in healthy meal planning doesn’t mean every meal is going to fit into my
calorie range so I need to know what I am truly getting if I am taking this seriously.” Though my
highlight 1 touched on this by saying the tester wanted the calorie count displayed. It concerns
the same issue but it is a new problem in itself. The ability to find nutrition facts all together not
just calorie count in Spoon University is excessively difficult to make a quick user-friendly

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experience. By creating an easier access or better navigation to the nutrition facts users will have
a better experience.
Alignment to Heuristic: Recognition Rather Than Recall
actions, and options visible. The User should not have to remember information from one part of
whenever appropriate. The nutrition facts of all the meals on Spoon University are very difficult
to find (visible) and are hard to retrieve. As I mentioned in task 1, one of the quotes from tester 1
was, “If this was real and you weren’t here I probably would have just exited out and found
another meal kit site.” The more difficult it is for people to find what they are looking for and
retrieve information the user is going to leave the site and find another site that will help them
accomplish their tasks in an easier and quicker fashion. If Chef’d makes the nutrition facts more
visible and easily retrievable to the user, they will ultimately create a better user experience for
customers.
Task four Assume/Pretend that it is Monday at 3:30 p.m., and you plan to prepare the spicy meal
on Saturday night; will the meal arrive in time?
Average Satisfaction 4 5 4.5
Highlights

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1.) Both testers were very confused on where to begin at first. Often time consumer websites
will have shipping rates or times products will arrive available on the home page letting
you know the average, or on each product page before you put it in the cart etc. Tester 1
said, “Amazon tells me when I should expect to receive my stuff before I even put it in
my cart just in case I want to order it.” Tester 2 caught on quicker than tester 1, but she
still said, “The only thing that really sucks about this is I have no idea where to begin.”
2.) Both testers decided to try adding their meal kit to their carts to see if they could get a
date then, it turned out you had to enter in your information like your address etc. Tester
1 said, “You shouldn’t have to put in this information just to find out how long the
shipping is for a product.” “What if I want this for a holiday and I don’t want to order it if
I can’t get it in time?” (To this, I thought very interesting since Chef’d does do
promotional meals for things like holidays and the Super Bowl.) Neither of the testers
like the idea of having to give information just to find shipping dates, they felt it to be
unnecessary and drawn out.
3.) Both testers when they discovered how long it was going to take to receive their meal kits
wanted to know why it would take so long. Tester 2 said, “I get it they send fresh and full
ingredients for meals, but it would be nice to know why it takes over a week to get it, is it
different depending on where I live?” Tester 1 said, “Maybe since I had to put in my
address it depends on where I live and that is how they know when I will get it.” Tester 1
also said, “Maybe they need to expand because if it takes this long to get my meal that
would frustrate me.” An explanation of how the meals are shipped out and where they are
shipped out from would give users a better understanding of the company and how

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everything works. Users do not like paying a lot of money and then not seeing their
product for a couple of weeks without some type of explanation.
Biggest Problem
The biggest overall problem for this task was the navigation available for users to find
out more information about the meal like nutrition facts. It is a blanket problem that many of the
highlights fit into, the main problem of most of the tasks so far have been a need for navigation
as there is definitely a lack of visible navigation for users. Even though you can click on the
picture of the meal for more navigation options that is not easily noticeable to the average user.
By not displaying the nutrition facts and ingredients in each meal, you create more work for the
users and more chances that they will encounter errors while trying to navigate through the
Spoon University Site. This will begin to frustrate users and have they search for another meal
kit website that will be easier for them to understand and use. Time is money especially with
college students, so the more work they have to do to figure out how navigation works the less
pleased those users are going to be.
Alignment to Heuristics: Recognition rather than recall
actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of
whenever appropriate. The theme throughout this usability test and all the task has been
navigation and easy use which has not been available in the Spoon University site of
Chef’d.com. If there were clear actions and options visible to users with filters and nutrition
facts to separate meals form calorie content and different health facts that people are interested in

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users will feel that the meal kit is truly catered and created just for them. Rather than feeling like
a general meal kit that is handed out to many people who order from Spoon University. By
adding navigation and easy visible buttons, the time to complete tasks will decrease and create a
better feeling for the users who can easily find what they are looking for.
Recommendations to improve user Experience
Single problem being fixed:
Task Number 3 Ensure none of your meals, “Grab ‘n’ Go’s or snacks is more than 450
calories per serving. If the calorie count is too high, swap the item for another. I was very
disappointed with Spoon University and the way they displayed their nutrition facts. Most users
who will be using Chef’d.com are people who care about healthy and clean eating, so a main
question for them will be how healthy are my meals, and do they have what I need to fuel my
body correctly. It was very difficult for both of my users to find and there was no clear and
obvious navigation to get to those nutrition facts and labels of each meal. Navigation is the
biggest problem with Spoon University and with some changes to accessible navigation; users
will have a much more enjoyable experience.
Problem Improvement:
The problems found in Task 3 with the visibility and accessibility of more information
can be fixed with better and clearer navigation that is easy for most users to understand.
Currently when looking at your prepared meal kit that Chef’d has created for you the only
interactive navigation button that is clearly noticeable it’s the “Swap Meal” button.

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To find things like Ingredients, spiciness, nutrition facts and more you must click on the
picture of food (once you figure out to do that). When you click on the picture of food there is
minimal information above the fold to help you know more about that meal or know if you are
on the right track to finding out what you are looking for. I have zoomed way out of the web
page to include the entire page so you can see just how far down the nutrition facts are. The page
fold is represented with the blue line I have put on top of the picture to show how minimal the
information is
To fix this problem the best thing for users would be to add navigational buttons to the
home page with the meals. As well as putting the number of calories on the front picture of each
meal as I had shown above in my highlights. By adding navigation buttons right away and

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putting the calorie count right away for users to see will help users to better understand each
meal, and know how to navigate the website better, and ultimately complete tasks in less time
without getting frustrated and leaving the site.
This small change automatically allows users to know more about what they are
purchasing and answer any questions that they may have. The biggest frustrations throughout the
whole paper were not knowing where to go and no easy navigation. My testers even brought up
the idea of filters to be used for price sorting, meal types, spiciness etc. by adding these buttons
on each meal and information it allows users to feel more in tune with what they are purchasing
and knowing where to go next. Like my tester 2 who said. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Now there is a clear starting point. Then once the user clicks on things like nutrition facts they

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will then be directed to the page that Chef’d has already created but it makes it much easier to
access and understand.
Navigation, Navigation, Navigation! Easy to understand accessibility and understanding
of the site the user is on. By making this slight change to add clear navigation buttons to the front
of each meal that adds more information it makes the user know where to start, know what they
are getting, and feel like they are creating more of a custom meal for themselves. The main
heuristic throughout this website Is recognition rather than recall, by adding navigation button
that solves the users problems with recognition.

Erin Sorensen

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