Usability Test for Chefd.com

Jackie Harding
Intro to Web Publishing
Lamer
03/08/2018
Usability Test for Chefd.com
TestPreparation
To complete these tasks, I used the laptop that is supplied by Northwest Missouri State
University to the full-time students, the HP Elitebook G4 (Ultrabook). The search engine I used
was Google Chrome. I chose this because I have become accustomed to how the engine runs.
I’m not a fan of Internet Explorer or Firefox. I find Internet Explorer to be too slow and Firefox
updates too often. I conducted my personal test on Wednesday, February 28th, 2018.
When I began these tasks, I remember hearing in class that the budget would only work
for one meal per week. For the first task that was to build a Spoon University meal plan and
determine to total weekly cost, I clicked around on if I were to have no meal per week or two
meals per week just to see the cost differences. If I didn’t have an actual meal, and I just ordered
Grab ‘n Go’s and snacks, the cost would be $49, so $16 under budget. With two meals per week,
the cost would have been $75, so $10 over the budget. I chose the meal plan with zero meals and
only Grab ‘n Go’s and snacks.
For the second task that was to add a spicy meal to the plan, I realized that there was no
real filter to filter in the spicy foods and out the foods that weren’t as spicy. Therefore, I had to

click into each meal, Grab ‘n Go, and snack and scroll down to find the spiciness of the food.
After researching on the site to find the levels of actual spiciness so I knew what to look for, I
found the levels were: none, mild, medium, hot. With that in mind, I went back to my meal kit
and clicked through the Grab ‘n Go’s and snacks to find that there were only mild and medium
spice levels. I chose the Chili Mac n’ Cheese with mild spiciness, because I’ve never been a fan
of really spicy food, so mild is a comfortable place for me to be at.
For the third task that was to ensure that meals, Grab ‘n Go’s and snacks were all under
450 calories, I clicked through every item under the meal, Grab ‘n Go and snack section to
ensure that nothing was above 450 calories. Although nothing was, it was very time consuming,
and if I was to ever really order anything off of this website, I wouldn’t go into that much
trouble.
For the fourth task that was to see if the meal plan would arrive within the five days that I
need it in, I put the meal kit that I designed into the “cart” or the “check out”. I then entered the
zip code that my address falls in. After looking at the dates that it could possibly be delivered, I
discovered that the meal kit would not make it by the following Saturday. It actually wouldn’t
make it to my house until 10-13 days later.
One difficulty I had during the first task was some of the pages for the items of food took
longer to load than others. With the second task, a difficulty I had was not finding a meal any
spicier than “medium” when I was trying to find a meal that was “hot”. I did not seem to have
any difficulties during the third or fourth task.
Choosing Participants

My first testers name is Tyler Uptegrove. He is 21 years old and is from Kansas City,
Missouri. Tyler is currently a junior at Northwest Missouri State University. Tyler is currently
majoring in English education. He currently works as a Clerk at QuikTrip gas station down in
Kansas City. He has never heard of Chefd.com, or any other meal kit website. At first, he didn’t
understand what the website was or what a meal kit is. After looking at the first page, he
understood meal kits a little better but still seemed disinterested.
Tyler described that his days mainly consisted of homework, studying for tests, applying
for graduate schools, and playing video games. Tyler described that he spends around 40 hours
per week on the internet. Many people would say that they spend more time on social media
rather than browsing. This tester says he spends around 35% of his internet usage on social
media, and around 65% browsing. His reasoning behind this is since he’s in many upper-level
courses, they require more research, and more papers which takes up more of his internet usage.
He describes himself as a high-experience user of the internet. This is also due to the amount of
research that takes place throughout his major, which helped him become familiar with the
internet and search engines.
Tyler fit the description of a reasonable tester because he has never seen or used an online
food-shopping site. When he gets in a new situation, he said that he tends to think out-loud in
order to find his way to completing the task. This helped when conducting this test because he
was able to clearly say his thoughts and sometimes wouldn’t even recognize that he was doing it.
He mumbled something and I asked for him to repeat it, and he didn’t even recognize that he
said something out-loud. It just comes that natural to him.
Environment for Tester 1:

 Location of Test: The test was conducted in his apartment in his
bedroom. This location was chosen because he feels most
comfortable while sitting at his desk in his bedroom. He said that it
is where his mind can focus and he can take a break if needed.
 Physical Environment: The lighting was soft, but during the test
he turned on an extra light which really brightened up the room.
 Technical Environment: The tester was working on the laptop
that Northwest supplies to the student for the year, the HP
Elitebook G4 (Ultrabook). He said he prefers to use Google
Chrome over Firefox or Internet Explorer because he has a google
account and just liked the way it’s designed. He did not seem to
have any plug-ins for his screen.
My second testers name is Makenzie Wistrom. She is 19 years old and is from Liberty,
Missouri. Makenzie is a sophomore at Northwest Missouri State University. She is currently
majoring is elementary education. She works as a supervisor in the games department at Worlds
of Fun amusement park in Kansas City, Missouri. Makenzie described that she didn’t even know
is was possible to buy this amount of food online and get it shipped to your house. She does not
have any familiarity with the site or what a meal plan is. After looking at the home page of
Chefd.com, Makenzie thought the idea was interesting but still very confused on how everything
worked.
Makenzie described what she does during the day as “part-time student, part-time Netflix
enthusiast”. She spends around 35 hours per week using the internet, primarily on her cell phone.

Makenzie says that she spends around 80% of her internet usage time on social media and
around 20% for browsing. Her reasoning behind this is she has many projects that just require
bookwork and hasn’t had many classes that put a lot of work online. She describes herself as a
low-experience user of the internet because if she doesn’t know what she’s looking for or
looking at, she can get easily confused and lost.
Makenzie fit the description of a reasonable tester because she has never seen a food-
shopping website. She said that she is always open to new ideas and enjoys thinking out-loud
because sometimes her thoughts can help those around her too.
Environment for Tester 2:
 Location of Test: This test was conducted at the library on the
first floor towards the back. This location was chosen because this
is where she chooses to study and do most of her homework. She
feels like it’s a good location because she is able to stay focused
but still have some sound around her since not many people sit
back there. She describes the third floor as being too quiet and the
second floor as being too loud.
 Physical Environment: The lighting was bright which allowed for
students to easily see their papers and homework. The distractions
this tester had were other students around her, also other tabs on
the website. They were easily accessible and even if her cursor
would barely go over it, the entire column would appear taking up
the entire screen (discussed later).

 Technical Environment: The tester was working on the laptop
that is provided by Northwest for the school year, the HP Elitebook
G4 (Ultrabook). She did her research on Chefd.com on Google
Chrome. She did not have any plug-ins connected to her Google
Chrome. Although, she did accidently zoom in on the page using
her mouse and actually found it easier to read the descriptions of
the meal kits.
TestResults
Initial Site Thoughts
When both testers looked at the home page of the site, there weren’t many similarities
with what they saw and paid attention to. They only had two similarities. Both Makenzie and
Tyler found it interesting that a site can customize a meal plan based on your preferences, and
then have it shipped to your house, so you don’t have to go to the grocery store for all of the
ingredients. Another similarity is they both noticed the amount of partners that Chefd.com has.
The companies and organization’s names that appeared surprised both testers.
Task 1: Build a Spoon University meal plan and determine the total weekly cost.
Summary for Both Testers:
Tester 1: Tyler Tester 2: Makenzie Average
Average Satisfaction 4/5 4/5 4/5
Success Rate 100% 80% 90%

Tyler rated his satisfaction as a 4/5. He says that he was able to quickly figure out how to
build a meal plan on Spoon University. It took some time whenever he’d hit the “back” button
and it would take him back to the homepage where he’d have to start over. I rated his success
rate a 100%. After I read the task, he found the Spoon University page and understood how to
work it. He seemed to recognize that there weren’t many instructions on what to do next or
where to scroll, so he used his problem-solving abilities in order to figure it out.
Makenzie rated her satisfaction as a 4/5. She believes that it was easy to understand once
you knew that you had to scroll down or up and the site wasn’t going to do it for you. She said
she would’ve rated her satisfaction as a 5/5 if she had more options to filter out rather than just
“allergies” and “protein”. I rated her success an 80%. Although she did complete the task, she
had some troubles. She seemed very confused on what to do next since there wasn’t any
instructions on where to scroll. Her body movements portrayed her as nervous and confused.
When a problem would arise, she’d throw her arms up a bit as if she was thinking “what is this?”
She was bouncing her leg rapidly, and kept looking around.
Highlights
1) Testers were confused when selecting proteins that they did want included in their
meal plans. Since all of the proteins were automatically selected, both testers thought they had to
click on the protein to turn it grey to say that they DID want the item.
2) Testers were surprised that the meals were so expensive. At the beginning of the task,
they both selected “7” since there are seven days in a week. They found out that only zero or one
meals could be selected because it’s all they could afford.

3) Testers were confused after they would select what they’re allergic to or not allergic
to, and the page wouldn’t scroll down for them. They didn’t know whether the page was still
loading or if it froze or if they had to scroll for themselves.
Biggest Problem
There were actually two biggest problems that both testers ran into. These two problems
go hand-in-hand when trying to complete this task. The first problem was that both had troubles
creating their meal plans because after they selected their allergies and clicked “next”, the page
didn’t scroll down for them. Both testers gave me a confused look as if they would like for me to
explain where to go next because the page didn’t change.
This was the screen
after the testers
clicked “next”. It
didn’t scroll down. It
stayed in the same
place and had no directions on where to go next.
The second biggest problem that arose was the testers didn’t realize when selecting
protein, that the orange color meant it was selected and gray is deselected. They would continue
throughout the meal plan and the task until they realized that their protein choices weren’t
options. They had the protein choices that they didn’t want. This made it harder for the testers
because they had to go back and recreate the meal plan and have to start the task over again.

Alignment to Heuristic
The heuristic that aligns with the testers results for task 1 is “help users recognize,
diagnose, and recover from errors”. This matches the biggest problem(s) described above. The
testers were able to recognize that the page had all of the protein they didn’t want to look at, and
none of the protein that they did want included in the plan. The testers were able to diagnose the
problem by starting their meal plans over and discovered that the orange colored proteins meant
that they were selected, and gray was deselected. Both testers mentioned that they wished the site
would just have the proteins start out in the gray color and they were able to select the ones they
want. The testers believed it was too confusing to have all the proteins automatically selected.
Task 2: Determine your spicy meal options and choose one meal that you are willing
to prepare.
Average Satisfaction 2/5 2/5 2/5
Tyler rated his satisfaction as a 2/5. It was difficult for him to find the levels of spiciness.
There wasn’t any clear meter or filter on the Spoon University page to find the levels of spiciness
that the site goes by. The site only offered mild and medium spiciness on the foods that were
offered in his meal plan. He would try to adjust the plan to cater to different types of foods that
could be spicier, but it never worked out. I rated his success rate a 100%. Although at the

beginning, he struggled with figuring out where to find the spicy level in each food, he realized
to click into the food and look. I acknowledged his efforts into finding spicier foods, but
eventually nudged him to move on to the next task.
Makenzie rated her satisfaction as a 2/5. She found that she was struggling with finding
the levels of spiciness, because the food item names didn’t look clickable. She said that she has
never been the type of person for spicy food so she didn’t care much for this task. I rated her
success rate as a 100%. Although she did struggle, she finished the task. She didn’t stop and ask
if we could move on. I instructed that we could move on to the next task, but she said she wanted
to complete it.
Highlights
1) The testers were confused on where to find the level of spice at on each item of food.
2) The testers would click the “back” button in order to get out of a certain food but the
site would take them back to the beginning of the meal plan where they would have to recreate
the plan. Makenzie said, “wait, why did it take me back to this? I have to start it all over? This is
going to take a while if it keeps happening”.
3) The testers were confused on the spice levels. I explained that the levels were none,
mild, medium, and hot. They were unable to find any meals under the “hot”, only found a few
“medium”, and the majority is “mild”. Tyler said, “I just can’t find anything spicier than mild.
When I think of spicy foods, I think of hot. Mild doesn’t seem spicy to me”.
Biggest Problem

The biggest problem that arose was the testers were unaware on where to find the spice
levels on each meal, Grab ‘n Go, and snack. They didn’t know they had to click into the food to
see it, because the links to the meals didn’t look clickable. The only thing that looked clickable
was the “swap meal” button.
The testers asked how to find the spice level since
there was no filter or way to sort the foods. “I don’t
understand where to find this at. All I have to go off
of is the picture. I’m not a chef. I can’t tell if it’s
spicy or not”, said Makenzie.
They both eventually figured out that they could actually click into the food option to
view what was in it, and how spicy it was. They both felt very aggravated that it wasn’t clear that
they were able to click on the items since it didn’t look clickable.
The heuristic that best aligns with the results from task 3 is “recognition rather than
recall”. The reason that this heuristic fits this biggest problem is because at the beginning of the
task, both testers could not figure out how to be able to view how spicy the food is. Once they
figured out the name of the item was clickable, it was recognizable to them to keep clicking on
the different items to find the spiciness. The testers both mentioned that the name shouldn’t be
black, it should be underlined or be a different color. “What would make a company think to

make something I need to click black? To me, it doesn’t look like I should click it,” said
Makenzie. “It just looks like regular text. It needs something to make it stand out”.
Task 3: Ensure none of the meals, Grab ‘n Go’s or snacks are more than 40 calories
per serving.
Average Satisfaction 5/5 4/5 4.5/5
Tyler rated his satisfaction as a 5/5. He said it was easy to find the nutritional information
after he knew to click on the food name to learn more. He felt like he was able to learn more
about how certain foods make you think that it will be a higher calorie count when it’s really
lower, and vise versa. He discussed that being able to look more into the foods helped him see all
of the ingredients involved and wants to try some of the recipes at home.
Makenzie rated her satisfaction as a 4/5. She said that it was good to be informed about
the calorie count on food, since she was never really concerned about it, but now she will be. She
would’ve rated it a 5/5, but said she found the task to be redundant because there were no meals,
Grab ‘n Go’s or snacks to switch out since they were all under 450 calories per serving. I rated
her success as a 100%. She completed the task quickly since she learned to click on the name of
the food item. She did get distracted with the nutrition facts and didn’t realize how bad some
foods were. Once I got her back on track with her task, it didn’t take long to complete.

Highlights
1) The testers had issues when they tried to click into the Four Cheese Mac n Cheese in a
Mug. It wouldn’t load, so they’d refresh the page and they would have to start the meal kit from
the beginning.
2) The testers became annoyed that the calorie count wasn’t displayed before they had to
click into the food item. They both felt as if that was an important aspect to show right away, just
like how it displays the cook time. “Wow, this really takes a lot of effort to have to click into
every single item to see the calorie count”, said Tyler.
3) The testers became annoyed with not having to switch any foods out with them not
being over 450 calories.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem that arose was the page not loading with the Four Cheese Mac n
Cheese in a Mug. When the testers began clicking through the different items of food to find the
different calories, they both found difficulty on the Four Cheese Mac n’ Cheese In a Mug. It
wouldn’t load.
It had the swirling loading sign and
wouldn’t allow the testers to click on the next
food item to move on.

The users then had to refresh the site in order to make that item stop loading, which once again
forced them to restart their meal plan.
The heuristic that best aligns with the testers results from task 3 is “user control and
freedom”. The biggest problem above fits the heuristic because the current site doesn’t allow a
way out. It doesn’t have a “x” or “cancel” button in order to make the item stop loading so they
could move on. The site does not have this, but both testers mentioned that the site should add a
way to exit the page without having to start completely over.
Task 4: Determine if the meal will arrive within the next five days to cook on the
fifth day.
Average Satisfaction 3/5 2/5 2.5/5
Tyler rated his satisfaction as a 3/5. He said that the process took a while to estimate the
delivery date, and the meal wouldn’t even arrive in time. He stated earlier in the paper that he
would try this site, but now has changed his mind due to the delivery time. I rated Tyler’s
success as a 100%. He seemed to easily complete the task, since he’s familiar with online

checkout processes. I was surprised when he changed his mind about using the site in the future
due to the long delivery time.
Makenzie rated her satisfaction as a 2/5. She said that it was easy to find out to checkout
and go through the process of finding the delivery date. Makenzie didn’t like how long the site
took (20 seconds) to figure out the delivery date. She said she was “thrown off” when the site
said the meal kit would take ten days or more to arrive. I rated Makenzie’s success as a 100%.
She completed the task quickly and with ease. She knew exactly where to go, what to look for,
and how to complete the task.
Highlights
1) The testers were confused on why something, like food, took so long to ship. “I don’t
know understand why the website thinks that I should be craving this food when it arrives in ten
days,” said Tyler. “If I’m ordering something online, odds are that I’ll want it within the next few
days, especially if it’s food.”
2) The testers found that the load time for finding the delivery date after they put in their
zip code took longer than necessary. “I guess it just doesn’t want to find my zip code if it’s
taking this long,” said Makenzie.
3) The testers were confused on when they went to their cart, an option appeared that said
“For weekly meal plan: $49” but they’re paying $62 for their meal.
Biggest Problem
There wasn’t a problem with any technical issues with the site for this task that the testers
ran into. The biggest problem that arose was the amount of time it takes for the food to be

delivered. This was the biggest problem for the testers because neither person seemed to be able
to get past that it could take ten days for the food to be delivered. They also couldn’t get passed
that there was three options for what day they want the delivery date to be. “Who would choose
the third date? Oh yes, I want this in 13 days,” said Makenzie. “How am I supposed to know if
I’ll be craving that food then? I wouldn’t want to buy something and then decide I don’t really
want it whenever it gets delivered.” Tyler also found it interesting that the delivery time was so
long, but wasn’t very vocal about it.
The heuristic that aligns with the biggest problem is the “visibility of system status”. This
best matches with the biggest problem above because the “cart” or “checkout” looked similar to
other websites. There was a little cart in the top right of the screen, like in most sites. Once it was
clicked, it showed the tester everything in it, and had a large “checkout” button at the bottom of
the screen. This helped the tester recognize where to go next once they were ready to check out
and search for delivery options.
Final Site Thoughts
There were a few things that both testers said when discussing their feelings on the
shopping experience. The testers said that once you get the hang of the Spoon University portion
of the site, it gets easier to navigate through. They both said they became aggravated at times
when things wouldn’t load, the site would load slowly, or they would have to restart the page
after hitting the “refresh” or “back” button. The testers also mentioned that having the nutrition

information easily accessible for the entire meal helped them see how healthy certain meals are.
Whereas at the grocery store, they don’t pay as much attention to nutrition information.
There were also a few differences in the final site thoughts between the testers. Tyler said
that he could see himself trying this site in the future because he had an overall good shopping
experience. “After looking at the total cost for the amount of food being delivered, it could
financially work out,” said Tyler. Makenzie, on the other hand, said she couldn’t see herself
coming back to a site like this. She believes that it would be easier for her to drive to the grocery
store and have the food readily available, instead of waiting ten days for it to be delivered. Tyler
thought of an idea that he found interesting for the site. He believes the customer should be able
to put the ingredients already in their house into consideration when ordering these meal plans.
Tyler says that customers should be able to customize the meal plan around it, so you only pay
for what you don’t already have. For example: if the customer already has red peppers in their
house, they shouldn’t have more red peppers delivered with the meal kit they ordered on
Chefd.com.
Recommendations
Single problem being fixed:
The problem I believe that needs to be fixed is the from task two. The testers were unable
to find the spice levels of the food due to not knowing the food item names were clickable.

Problem Improvement:
Although this seems like a very easy fix to the site, I believe it could help with user
experience. Both of my testers had problems trying to find the information on the items that were
included in their meal plans. At the beginning of the second task, neither tester knew they were
able to click on the items name in order to gain more information. The name didn’t look
clickable. The only part that seemed clickable was the “Swap Meal” button under each item. If
users see something that doesn’t look clickable, they tend to not even try clicking it.

With the text being a different color than black, and being underlined, it shows that the
users are able to click on the names. This can help with user experience by the “recognition
rather than recall” heuristic, as discussed above in task two. The user won’t have to think as
much into how to operate the site. It makes the clickable names visible for the user for them to
recognize to click there for more information. This brings the higher possibility for user’s to
continue and buy the meal plan because they’re able to learn exactly what they’re getting without
any troubles.

Usability Test for Chefd.com

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Usability Test for Chefd.com

Similar to Usability Test for Chefd.com (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Usability Test for Chefd.com