Research effort for August

1. Usability Testing
Jaime Brown, Product Designer
August 2022

2. Learning
Objectives
• Review proposed mechanism that would allow users to favorite an
application 'card', on the applications page, and have a
corresponding enhanced application card appear on that user's
homepage.
• Examine current user applications and identify what the users want
and/or expect to see from those applications if they were
represented by enhanced 'cards' on the homepage. Discover actions
the users want to take with those applications and what information
users might want to see quickly represented, too.
• Review current 'foundation' applications that all users will have
access to within Lowe's Vendor Gateway (ie - Ticket Management,
Knowledge Center, etc) and what information the users' would like to
see (if any) updated on those cards. Those are applications that
can't be "favorited" on the Applications page, simply because the
users always have access to those applications.
• Identify any gaps in the current user experience, from new vendors
to experienced vendors, with what they expect to see on the
homepage.
• What training or resources would make the journey of 'new' to
'experienced' easier to navigate?

3. Overview
Today we're going to be presenting several aspects of the navigation process
for Lowe’s Vendor Gateway—the one stop shop for managing your relationship
and business with Lowe’s.
We are really excited to have you collaborate with us as we work to make
vendor-facing applications that will take some of the burden from your
business.
Have you ever been a part of a usability study? A usability study is a study of a
digital product or tool or website where the product is tested when in the
hands of a user. What is being evaluated is the quality of the product not the
user’s knowledge or inherent ability to understand everything about the
product.
There is nothing that you can say today or share that is wrong. We are looking
for your honest feedback about our communication and our product. I did not
design or build this personally….so there is absolutely nothing you could share
that would hurt my feelings.
Preface: We will be recording this session, so that we can capture all your
insights and knowledge. Are you ok with this?
We will have various team members watching us live behind the scenes. They
will not be speaking to you at all until the very end of the session when they
might want to ask you some more specific questions about what you have
shared. If at any time you want to stop, take a break, call it quits for whatever
reason this is your right and we respect that. Do you have any questions for us
before we dive in?

4. Task 1 – Favoriting Applications

5. Scenario 1
• You are an experienced vendor, and
you’ve heard that there are new
application cards available to add to
your homepage.
• How would you expect to add those
application cards?
• Success – Navigate to Application Tab
• Success – Favorite Item Mgt, Vendor
Inquiry and Vendor Partner Premium via
the “star” icon.
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Navigate back to the homepage to review
the results.
Task 1

6. Scenario 1
• You are an experienced vendor, and
you’ve heard that there are new
application cards available to add to
your homepage.
• How would you expect to add those
application cards?
• Success – Navigate to Application Tab
• Success – Favorite Item Mgt, Vendor
Inquiry and Vendor Partner Premium via
the “star” icon.
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Navigate back to the homepage to review
the results.
Task 1

7. Scenario 1
• You are an experienced vendor, and
you’ve heard that there are new
application cards available to add to
your homepage.
• How would you expect to add those
application cards?
• Success – Navigate to Application Tab
• Success – Favorite Item Mgt, Vendor
Inquiry and Vendor Partner Premium
via the “star” icon.
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Navigate back to the homepage to
review the results.
Task 1

8. Scenario 1
• You are an experienced vendor, and
you’ve heard that there are new
application cards available to add to
your homepage.
• How would you expect to add those
application cards?
• Success – Navigate to Application Tab
• Success – Favorite Item Mgt, Vendor
Inquiry and Vendor Partner Premium
via the “star” icon.
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Navigate back to the homepage to
review the results.
Task 1

9. Scenario 1
• You are an experienced vendor, and
you’ve heard that there are new
application cards available to add to
your homepage.
• How would you expect to add those
application cards?
• Success – Navigate to Application Tab
• Success – Favorite Item Mgt, Vendor
Inquiry and Vendor Partner Premium
via the “star” icon.
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Navigate back to the homepage to
review the results.
Task 1

10. Task 1
•Scenario 1
• You are an experienced vendor, and
you’ve heard that there are new
application cards available to add to your
homepage.
• How would you expect to add those
application cards?
• Success – Navigate to Application Tab
• Success – Favorite Item Mgt, Vendor
Inquiry and Vendor Partner Premium via
the “star” icon.
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Navigate back to the homepage to review
the results.

11. End Task 1 – Pause Here for Q&A

12. Task 1 – Post Task Questions
Questions:
• Ease of Use - Ranking
• On a Scale from 1:5, with 1 being the Easiest and 5 being the most Difficult, how would you rate the activity of
favoriting and add new application cards to the homepage?
• Why did you rate the activity a *insert their rating*?
• How do you feel about the time it took you to complete the activity?
• Having completed the task, what did you think about the Ticket Management card?
• Are there any ways we could have provided directions for favoriting cards or was the act of going to the application tab
intuitive?
• Vendor Partner Premium Card –
• Item Management Card –
• Vendor Inquiry Card -
• How would you expect to be notified that there’s a new application card available? Why?

13. Task 2 – Unfavoriting Applications

14. Task 2
Scenario 2
• Similar scenario, but we’re going to ask
you to go through the process again,
with a few small changes.
• Please favorite the following applications:
Item Mgt and Vendor Inquiry.
• Click the Add Favorite Applications CTA
• Success – Locate and Favorite Item Mgt
and Vendor Inquiry Inquiry the
modal/tabs.
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Discuss new cards and new
arrangements.
• PAUSE HERE to Discuss NEW CARDS

15. Task 2
Scenario 2
• Similar scenario, but we’re going to ask
you to go through the process again,
with a few small changes.
• Please favorite the following applications:
Item Mgt and Vendor Inquiry.
• Click the Add Favorite Applications CTA
• Success – Locate and Favorite Item Mgt
and Vendor Inquiry Inquiry the
modal/tabs.
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Discuss new cards and new
arrangements.
• PAUSE HERE to Discuss NEW CARDS

16. Task 2
Scenario 2
• Similar scenario, but we’re going to ask
you to go through the process again,
with a few small changes.
• Please favorite the following applications:
Item Mgt and Vendor Inquiry.
• Click the Add Favorite Applications CTA
• Success – Locate and Favorite Item Mgt
and Vendor Inquiry Inquiry the
modal/tabs.
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Discuss new cards and new
arrangements.
• PAUSE HERE to Discuss NEW CARDS

17. Task 2
Scenario 2
• Similar scenario, but we’re going to ask
you to go through the process again,
with a few small changes.
• Please favorite the following applications:
Item Mgt and Vendor Inquiry.
• Click the Add Favorite Applications CTA
• Success – Locate and Favorite Item Mgt
and Vendor Inquiry
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Discuss new cards and new
arrangements.
• PAUSE HERE to Discuss NEW CARDS

18. Task 2
Scenario 2
• Similar scenario, but we’re going to ask
you to go through the process again,
with a few small changes.
• Please favorite the following applications:
Item Mgt and Vendor Inquiry.
• Navigate to Application Tab
• Success – Favorite Item Mgt and Vendor
Inquiry via the “star” icon.
• View the success message confirming
cards were favorited.
• Discuss new cards and new
arrangements.
• PAUSE HERE to Discuss NEW CARDS

19. Pause HERE for Q&A

20. Task 2
Scenario 2
• Now that you’ve gone through the
process of favoriting cards, and you’ve
had the opportunity to compare
different application card
configurations, how would you expect
to ‘unfavorite’ or remove those cards?
• In this scenario, please ‘unfavorite’ the
Item Management card.
• Success – Unfavorite the ‘star’ icon for
Item Mgt.

21. Task 2
Scenario 2
• Now that you’ve gone through the
process of favoriting cards, and you’ve
had the opportunity to compare
different application card
configurations, how would you expect
to ‘unfavorite’ or remove those cards?
• In this scenario, please ‘unfavorite’ the
Item Management card.
• Success – Unfavorite the ‘star’ icon for
Item Mgt.

22. Task 2
Scenario 2
• Now that you’ve gone through the
process of favoriting cards, and you’ve
had the opportunity to compare
different application card
configurations, how would you expect
to ‘unfavorite’ or remove those cards?
• In this scenario, please ‘unfavorite’ the
Item Management card.
• Success – Unfavorite the ‘star’ icon for
Item Mgt.

23. Task 2
Scenario 2
• Success - Navigate back to the
Applications Page
• Success – Unfavorite the ‘star’ icon for
Item Mgt.
• View confirmation that the Item Mgt
card was successfully unfavorited.
• View old, current Item Mgt card. End
Task – Pause Card next for Q&A

24. Task 2
Scenario 2
• Success - Navigate back to the
Applications Page
• Success – Unfavorite the ‘star’ icon for
Item Mgt.
• View confirmation that the Item Mgt
card was successfully unfavorited.
• View old, current Item Mgt card. End
Task – Pause Card next for Q&A
• END

25. End Task 2 – Pause Here for Q&A

26. Task 2 – Post Task Questions
Questions:
• Ease of Use - Ranking
• On a Scale from 1:5, with 1 being the Easiest and 5 being the most Difficult, how would you rate the activity
unfavoriting an application card?
• Why did you rate the activity a *insert their rating*?
• How did you expect to ‘unfavorite’ the new cards? How could we make this process easier?
• Would you expect to see the old, static card replace the new card, or would you expect that application card to disappear
completely from the homepage? Why?
• How do you feel about the time it took you to complete the activity?
• How would you expect to be notified by Lowe's that there’s a new application card available? Why?

27. Task 2 – Post Task Continued
Questions:
• Vendor Partner Premium Card – Having viewed the example, what are your thoughts on what you would expect to see.
• Are communications from the application sufficient, or would you expect to have any data visualizations available from the
application, itself?
• Item Management Card – How did you feel about this card? Did you feel the information would be sufficient with quick
visuals, or would you like more in-depth information and a larger screen presence?
• Vendor Inquiry Card – How do you feel about this card?
• Ticket Management - Having discussed Item Mgt and Vendor Inquiry, I'd like to get your thoughts on the Ticket Mgt
Card. <This will lead into the A/B Comparison on the next slide and in their prototype>

28. Task 2 – Post Task
– A/B Slide
A/B Ticket Mgt Comparison Slide
Card A/Ticket A Card B/Ticket B

29. Questions:
• Ticket A:
• Overall Design – Scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the worst and 10 being the best.
• Two words you'd use to describe it:
• Thoughts?
• Ticket B:
• Overall Design – Scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the worst and 10 being the best.
• Two words you'd use to describe it:
• Thoughts?
• If you had to pick one, which of the two designs do you prefer (A, or B)? Why?
Task 2 – Post Task – A/B Slide

30. Interview Portion

31. Interview Portion - Q&A
Questions:
• For MVP, we won’t have the ability for you to manually place position of the cards, so what is most important for you to see above
the fold? Why?
• What apps are you currently using, that are not in the GW, that you will want or need to see on the homepage? Why?
• What apps would you expect to interact with? Why?
• What apps would be more useful as a smaller, right-side card? Why? A ‘quick’ visual, maybe a smaller card with just vital info?
• What, if anything, would be useful to see on the homepage for the Company Information card?
• As an experienced user, do you need to see that card on the homepage? Why or why not?
• How would you expect this to differ from global header notifications?
• How would you expect to be notified of this new functionality once it’s available? Why?
• How would you expect to be trained on this new functionality? Why?
• Would you expect resources in the Knowledge Center? Why or why not?
• How would you expect to be notified a new “application” card is available to add to your homepage? Why?
• If you had difficulty favoriting a new card, and saw an error message, what directions would you expect to resolve this issue?

32. Wrap-up Questions

33. Usability Test Wrap-Up
Conclusion:
• That concludes our questions related to the Lowe's Vendor Gateway for the time being.
• Thank you for participating in this research test.

34. End