Addition to the analysis of The Original Muck Boot Company, I did usability tests to see how well users could access the site. I gave solutions to the problems as well.

1. Usability Test for MuckBootCompany.com
TestPreparation
For this assignment, I conducted two usability tests over The Original Muck Boot Company
website. I read them what the test was for, and what they needed to do for the test. Before I even
started this test, I made sure I performed the same tasks so I was familiar with them and to see if
I had any problems during them. I will share what I observed performing the four tasks.
For usability test, there was a scenario and then tasks to go with it. The scenario is about needing
boots under $140 to help the Louisiana hurricane victims. The first task was to find how many
boots there are under $140. While on MuckBootCompany.com home page, I hovered over the
“Best For” tab, and clicked on “Best For” to see all boots. From there, it took me to the page
with all their boots. On the page, there was a filter button and I filtered the price to $100-$150.
Also, I filtered the price to begin with the cheapest boot to the most expensive boot. As I scrolled
through the boots, I was counting how many boots that were under $140, which there were 30.
After I had that number, I looked to the left of the screen to find the other filters for the prices. I
noticed they had a filter for under $100 and I counted those, there were 7, into my other findings.
The total of boots I found under $140 was 37.
I thought this task was simple. I found the boots I needed to find in reasonable time, and I did not
get frustrated that I could not find something.
The second task was to find out how many of the $140 boots were steel-toe constructed. I stayed
on the page I was on in the first task, and I went through each little description underneath the
boots. I searched through the three pages, and I found only one. The boot I discovered was the
Chore Hi Steel Toe and the price of it was $139.99.

2. This task was not hard by any means. However, looking back at it, I could have went about it a
different way to find my answer faster. I could have used the search bar at the top right hand
corner and looked up ”steel toe boots” instead of going through each boot individually. I do think
there could have been a filter for this type of boots and others like it.
The third task was to determine what the cheapest shipping option is if you had to leave on
Monday at 6:00 a.m. and today’s date was Tuesday at 3:30 in the afternoon. I clicked on the
Chore Hi Steel Toe boots, and I put my size in the size filter. After my size was in, I added the
boots into my cart. I clicked on the shopping bag picture at the top right corner, and it showed
me what was in my shopping cart and how much it cost. There was a button that said, “view
bag” and I clicked on it. The website showed me the product, the size, quantity, and if it is in
stock or not. Below that, you apply any coupons, gift cards, and estimate the tax and shipping. I
clicked on the estimate tax and shipping arrow, and it had a drop down of the country, zip code,
and state/province for me to fill in for tax. Underneath the estimated tax are the shipping options.
I did the math quickly and determined the cheapest shipping option I needed to get the boots on
time. Unfortunately, the boots would not be here on time with the free shipping. My best option
was the UPS 3 Day shipping and the total for that option was $13.00.
I did not have any problems with this. The task was quick and easy. The Original Muck Boot
Company did a great job on the navigation for the shopping bag. Moreover, they do need to be
consistent with their wording. What I mean by this is on the product details, the website says
“Add to Cart,” but when I clicked on the shopping bag in the top right hand corner, the button
says “View Bag.” It is not the same and this could confuse a customer as to why it would be
different or it could make them think that they are going to a different page other than their
shopping bag.

3. The last task was to find the best boot option and find out the estimated tax and shipping
included into the price. For this task, I was not thinking of the scenario at all. I was thinking of
what the best boot there could be on the site for me. If I were to go by the scenario, then I would
have picked the same boot from task 3.
However, I overlooked the scenario and this is what I did. I hovered the women’s tab, and
clicked on boots. I used the filter “Sort By” and clicked on popular to see what the most popular
boot was. I clicked on the very first pair because it is the most popular according to the website.
My thoughts were if it is the most popular, it has to be the best. The boot was called Arctic
Outpost Lace Mid. I picked the color black and the size 7. I then clicked ‘”Add to Cart” and then
I viewed my bag. I looked through my bag one last time before adding the estimated tax and
shipping. After that, I inputted my country, zip code, and state to configure the tax. The tax came
out to be $11.45. I did not want to pay for shipping, so I clicked on the slowest shipping time to
get free shipping. I did not look at the price of the boots until I got to this point. The total, with
tax, came out to be $211.45.
I did not have any problems leading up to the product detail page. When I got to the product
detail page, I struggled a little with the size. My size was the smallest size they had, so the sizes
conflicted with the Best For tab shown on the next page.

4. This was a pain because when trying to click on the 7, the Best For bar would drop and I did not
want this to happen. I finally got to click the number after the third time attempting.
My final thoughts on the website function ability for users is that everything is easy to find. I did
not have any troubles trying to find what I needed. The navigation getting to each different site
was simple, and I could not find anything wrong with it. Nevertheless, I thought the drop down
bar for the Best For boots was annoying when trying to click on my size. That part was not user
friendly to me. Another thing I did not like was the user has to figure out the estimated tax and
shipping in the shopping bag. I think this could be fix to make the customer have a more pleasant
experience.
Choosing Participants

5. Tester 1:
The first tester for this experiment was my mother, Ashley Thomas. I picked her because it was
convenient and she is a good candidate because she is middle-aged and does things different
from how I do things. Ashley is a stay home mom, so she does upkeep on the house, cooks,
cleans, and takes care of her two dogs. She was not familiar with the site content or anything
about The Original Muck Boot Company. However, she does do a lot of online shopping on site
like Amazon, Overstock, and other retailors. She spends 15 hours a week online whether it is
shopping, browsing, or checking her email. Ashley is not a big social media fan, so she probably
uses social media platforms 10 percent out of those 15 hours a week. Although she does not use
social media, Ashley thinks that she is a high-experience user of the Internet.
Environment for Tester 1
Location of Test:
Ashley and I were sitting on the floor in her living room when the test was being conducted. She
chose this sot because it was in the comfort of her home, and we were sitting on the ground
because her dogs wanted to sit by her.
Physical Environment:
We conducted this test in the early evening so sunlight was still out at this time. Since it was
Sunday when the test was performed, football was on in the background. As I mentioned above,
Ashley was sitting with her dogs because they would not leave her alone. No one else was in the
room but us as well.
Technical Location:
Ashley was using her Dell computer when going through the test. She was using Wi-Fi that had a
strong connection and she was using Google Chrome as her browser.

6. Tester 2:
My second tester for the experiment was my father, Chris Thomas. I chose him because it was
also convenient and he is an excellent candidate because he is middle-aged, he does things
differently, and he knows how usability testing works as well. Chris works at Northwest
Missouri State University as the Director of IT. He leads a team of 17, and he is in meetings all
day trying to make Northwest’s networking the best it can be. He spends He spends 65-70 hours
a week using the Internet and his email. Out of these 65-70 hours, he uses his social media
platforms 30 percent of the time. Chris considers himself a high-experience user of the Internet.
Although Chris is on the Internet most of his week, he is not familiar with The Original Muck
Boot Company or its site content.
Environment for Tester 2:
Location of Test:
The test was conducted in his living room. We did the test in the living room because it was the
most comfortable spot for him to be in and for him to take the test in his natural habitat.
Physical Environment
Chris took the test in the later evening, so there were a few lights on and also the a little bit of
sunlight. There were few distractions that were taking place during the test. The Sunday night
football was on, the dogs were right next to him,, and his wife was trying to talk to him.
Technical Environment
Chris was using his Northwest Dell computer while taking this test. He was on Wi-Fi that had a
strong connection and he was using Google Chrome as his Internet Browser.
TestResults
Initial Site Thoughts

7. Ashley’s initial thoughts were this page is for people who want to buy rain boots. She was not
interested in the pop up for the 10 percent off; it actually annoyed her. Chris looked at the site
more technical than Ashley did. He thought the pictures loaded slowly on the page and that was
frustrating because he could not tell what the site was all about at first glance. Once the picture
did pop up, the pop up for 10 percent off came up and he noticed that you had to enter your email
to receive the coupon. This did not bother him as much as it did for Ashley. He thought it was a
good tactic for people to buy boots.
Scenario: You’ve just volunteered to spend a week in Louisiana helping hurricane victims clean
their homes and businesses. You need a pair of sturdy, waterproof boots within a week and your
budget is $140, total.
Task 1: Determine how many boot options are less than $140.
Summary for Both Testers:
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 5 5 5
Highlights
1) Chris and Ashley did not have any problems throughout their first task.
Task 2: You’ve just been advised that you’ll need steel-toe constructed boots. Of the options
you’ve found, which offer steel-toe construction?
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 5 5 5
Highlights

8. 1) Chris and Ashley did not have any problems throughout their second task.
Task 3: Assume/pretend that it is Tuesday at 3:30pm and your flight leaves at 6:00a.m. Monday
morning. Determine the cheapest shipping option to receive the boots on time, and determine the
estimated costs.
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 5 5 5
Highlights
1) Chris and Ashley did not have any problems throughout their third task.
Task 4: Choose the best boot option and determine the total order amount, including shipping.
(If this requires you to go through the steps to order, do so, but do not enter any payment
information, and of course, do not actually order the boots.)
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 5 5 5
Highlights
Final Thoughts
Both Ashley and Chris thought the website was easy to navigate and they had a favorable
experience. The only problem Chris had was with the pictures loading at the beginning. Ashley’s
problems was the size drop down bar got in the way of the tabs at the top. While Chris thought
there was a good selection of boots, Ashley did not and thinks they need more of a variety in the
women’s section.
Recommendations to Improve User Experience

9. Single Problem Being Fixed:
In task 4, Ashley and I had trouble with the size bar going up too high. Also, there was not a
filter for the estimated tax and shipping in the product details.
Alignment to Heuristic:
Problem Improvement:
The Original Muck Boot Company Product Detail Page

10. Improvements to the Product Detail Page

11. In the first picture, it shows what the product detail page looks like now. The second and third
picture is what I would change to the page. The first picture does not show the tax or shipping
methods. Also as mentioned in my observations, the size drop down bar goes up with no scroll
bar making all the possible size to be shown.
In the improvements I would add the estimated tax and shipping. The page would have
categories for the country, state, and zip code to figure out tax. It would also have an option to

12. put in what type of shipping a customer might want. Then when the customer has input their
information, they can click on the calculate button to see how much the boot will actually cost.
Another thing I would like to improve is that once a customer has input their information and
they like what they see, they can click the “Add to Cart” button and their information will be
there on the check out page. This would help out the customer because they do not have to retype
their information for at least that part.
I would make changes to the sizing as well, so there is a scroll bar, and it is not interfering with
the menu tabs like shown in the third picture. I would do this for the estimated tax and shipping
as well, so it is not overcrowded. This would improve the conflict people might have with
different parts of the website overlapping.
If the product details was improved to the ideas mentioned above, The Original Muck Boot
Company would succeed in their user experience, traffic, and be a overall better website.