The document summarizes usability tests conducted on the Chef'd.com website. Two testers, Jack and Tori, completed tasks on the site and had some common issues. For the first task of building a meal plan, testers struggled to find meal prices and had to keep changing the number of meals selected. The second task involved choosing a spicy meal, but testers could not determine which meals were spicy. The third task required checking meal calories, but testers had to click every meal to see nutrition facts. Overall, testers felt meal plans were too expensive and suggested improving price visibility and adding filters.

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Usability Test for Chef’d.com
Test Preparation
I prepared for the testing by going through the tasks myself. I started with the
initial thoughts and looked around the page to see if anything had changed. I started on
task one which was to set up a meal plan using Spoon University. I went to the meal
plans drop down menu and clicked on Spoon University. I read through the page and I
liked how everything was geared towards college age kids. Chef’d did a nice job of
explaining what customers will get with their meal plan.
The scenario was “Your rich aunt is helping you eat healthy at college by giving
you up to $65 per week for Chef’d meals, but she specifically said she wants you to
order the site’s “Spoon University” meals.”
Task one was to build a Spoon University meal plan and determine the total
weekly cost. The scenario given said that I was given $65 a week for meals. I clicked on
the start meal plan button and got started. I noticed that it points out to the customer
that what they type in isn’t set in stone, so they can still change their answer. I went
through the allergies section without any problems. When I got to what kind of meals I
like I thought it was odd that they have all of the options selected already. It kind of
confused me because I wasn’t sure if I was selecting the option or unselecting it. The
buttons shouldn’t be orange and grey because it’s hard to tell which one is selected. I
think they should try to have all of the directions on the page when choosing how many
meals because I had to keep scrolling to figure out what the numbers where for.

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When choosing how many meals I would like each week I wish it had shown how
much the meals were then. I chose 3 meals at first to see how much the price was
going to be. It turned out to be $88 and that went over my $65 budget. I went back and
changed my number to 1 and that knocked the price down to $62 which was inside my
price range. I then looked into the meals I could pick and choose the Brown Sugar
Salmon with Brown Rice and Broccolini because the pictures made my mouth water.
I moved on to task #2 which was that I was allowed another meal and it needed
to be a spicy meal. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to see if the meal was spicy or not
so I tried searching spicy meals in the search box but that ended up taking me outside
of the Spoon University meals and I had to start all the way over because it didn’t save
my data. Once I got back to where I was I tried just scrolling through the page to see if it
was anywhere on there. I didn’t find anything, so I tried clicking the swap meal button to
see if there was anything in there that indicated if the meal was spicy or not and I had
no such luck. I ended up giving up on the task because I couldn’t figure it out.
Task #3 was to make sure all of our meals, “Grab ‘n’ Go’s” or snacks were less
than 450 calories per serving and to change it if they weren’t then swap them out. After
scrolling a through the page yet again and not finding anything I just started clicking on
the pictures and that’s how I found the nutrition AND how spicy the meal is. I had to
click on every single picture to see what the calories were for each meal/snack. That
was not fun and took a lot of time.
After doing that I started task #4 which was to assume/pretend that it’s Monday
at 3:30pm and I want to plan to prepare the spicy meal I chose on Saturday night and
will the meal arrive in time. I clicked the add to cart button at the bottom then checkout

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and entered my zip code and it popped up with different dates that I would want my box
to come and if it’s Monday it said that I could get it by that Wednesday at the earliest
and Friday at the latest. To answer the task yes it will get here in time. My final thoughts
on the website were that it was relatively easy to use there were just a few things I
would fix to make it a little more user friendly and that if I click out of that specific page I
don’t want to have to redo everything.
Choosing Participants
Tester 1: Jack Bartley
Jack is a 21-year-old male. He works on campus with campus vending but is also
a student. I chose Jack because his family is familiar with HelloFresh and I thought it
would be cool to get his opinion on the Chef’d website. He said that he spends about 50
hours online usually. 70% of his online usage was social media and the other 30%
being school work or browsing. When asked if he was a high-experience or low-
experience user he said that he was a moderate user.
Environment for Tester 1
 Location of test: I asked Jack where he usually gets his homework
done or where he goes if he needs to get something done and he chose
the second floor of the library.
 Physical environment: Jack chose a white board table, so he could
write things out on the table. It was dark out and he had got a water from
the vending machine. There was another person sitting with him also
studying. The person didn’t start out as a distraction but later became one

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because he kept talking to Jack. Then 3 more people joined us at the table
and distracted him some more by talking. 2 more people stopped by to
say hi really quick.
 Technical environment: Jack used his university computer to do the
test on and chose Chrome as his browser of choice. He was using the
university Wi-Fi also. He didn’t personalize his computer at all. So, there
weren’t any distracting add-ons.
Tester 2: Tori Paulson is a 24-year-old female. Tori is a student and is a graduate
assistant in the Student Success Center as an Academic Success Coach. She is
currently trying to eat better and work out but also save money when she can. She is
very into meal prepping and I thought Chef’d would be perfect for her since they have
the Spoon University meal plan.
Paulson said that she spends around 30-40 hours online a week. Her usage was
a 50%-50% split for social media and web browsing. Tori called herself an average user
when it came to experience.
Environment for Tester 1
 Location of test: Tori chose the second floor of the library to get all of
her homework done. She spends a lot of time there since that’s where the
success center is. The second floor is just where she gets a big chunk of
her homework done.
 Physical environment: It was around 6pm so it was dark outside and
there was no natural light, there was only the fluorescent lights. Tori was
sitting with one other person.

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The library was somewhat quiet but as the test went on the second
floor got louder the more people showed up. There was a lot of talking that
I noticed. She had her Starbucks drink and got all of her pencils and
markers out that she would need for whatever she was going to be doing.
 Technical environment: Tori used her MacBook Air laptop. She was
connected to the Wi-Fi and used Chrome as her browser. Her laptop was
personalized but I didn’t notice any add-ons that were distracting or
anything.
Test Results
Initial Site Thoughts
Both Jack and Tori pointed out that Chef’d.com looked similar to HelloFresh.com.
Tori meant it more as both companies do the same thing such as create meal plans for
you and ship them to your door. Tori and Jack both noticed the celebrities on the page
like Kim Kardashian’s tweet about Chef’d that pictured her making a meal that Chef’d
and Atkins created together. Tori had made the comment “If Kim K uses it maybe I
should too.” She also knew more of the celebrity chef’s because she watches Food
Network a lot. The first comment Jack made was, “Oh wow they are sponsored by
Raisins.” He apparently thinks highly of Raisins. They both thought that the prices were
high for the meals. The meals that were made for 2 that cost $24 made Jack say,
“Applebee’s is cheaper.”
Task 1: Build a Spoon University meal plan and determine the total weekly
cost.
Summary for Both Testers:

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Highlights
One of the problems the testers had was that the prices weren’t made very clear.
Testers ran into some problems when they were choosing how many meals they
wanted, and the website didn’t show how much it cost until after the customer picked
how many meals and scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the page. They would
have preferred it to have the cost underneath where you choose the amount of meals.
A second problem the testers had was when looking for their meals was when
they would go back to a different page their information would reset and they would
have to go through the whole initial process again. They both found this part really
annoying.
The third problem is when the tester entered in their information and moved on to
the next page all of the instructions were not visible without scrolling or the page would
automatically scroll and leave off the top of the instructions. It confused the testers
because they weren’t sure what they were supposed to be doing.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem the testers ran into during task one was definitely the finding
the prices. After clicking the “Start Meal Plan” button on the Spoon University page it
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 3 3 3
Success Rate 100% 100% 100%

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takes the customer through the allergies and the proteins then asks how many meals
they would like to add. If the customer is on a budget, then they just have to play the
pick and choose game. If Chef’d put the prices underneath the number of meals the
customer can choose then that would eliminate the problem.
It also states at the bottom of the Spoon University page that you can add “Quick
and Easy” meals for $6.50 but when looking at all the meal options the customer can’t
see any prices, except for the $13 meals. Both of the testers were agitated when they
had to keep going back to the top of the page to change how many meals they want.
They thought that with $65 a week they would be able to get 5 meals. They were wrong.
They had to go back and forth changing how many meals they want and seeing what
the price was. They had to do that 5 times. Tester #1 said “$13 is a lot for a meal.”
Alignment to Heuristic:
This problem aligns with the help and documentation heuristic because all that
Chef’d needs to do is list the prices clearly. The help and documentation heuristic is for
when something works well but still sometimes needs to have documentation, which
applies to this case.
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.
Summary for Both Testers:
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average

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Highlights
A few of the problems the testers had were not being able to figure out if a meal
was spicy or not and how “easy” is easy when it comes to making the meal. The testers
both had issues finding if the meal was spicy or not.
One of the testers also questioned how easy is Chefd’s idea of easy. Neither of
the testers completed the whole task because they didn’t find where the meal said that it
was spicy. Tester #2 was the only one really concerned about it because she enjoys
cooking.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem with this task is that the testers couldn’t figure out how to
find out if a meal was spicy or not. The testers didn’t figure out that they could click on
the pictures to learn more about the meal. Maybe if the picture changed or did some
sort of color change or animation when hovered over it then users would know that the
picture is clickable.
Tester #1 tried typing into the little help box that popped up but got nowhere,
Tester #2 typed “spicy food” into the search bar and didn’t get where she needed to be.
Both testers just read the name of the food and assumed that’s all they were supposed
to do and gave up.
Average Satisfaction 3 3 3
Success Rate 50% 50% 50%

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Alignment to Heuristic:
The heuristic this problem aligns with is help and documentation because both
testers had issues finding part of the task and chose to use the search bar and the help
button that pops up at the bottom. The help and documentation heuristic states that
“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.”
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.
Summary for Both Testers:
Highlights
The testers did not have too many problems with this task. They both figured out
that the pictures are clickable and that is not only where you find the nutrition fact but
also how spicy the meal is. Both testers thought that Chef’d should have made it easier
to determine how many calories are in their meals.
Biggest Problem
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 3 1 2
Success Rate 100% 100% 100%

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The biggest problem the testers came across was that there wasn’t a way to filter
out how many calories they wanted or needed in their meals. When asked to see how
many calories were in each meal they had to click on every single one to find out.
“There should be some sort of filter for this,” said Tori. Having a filter to select how
many calories a customer wants inn their meals would save them a lot more time in the
long run and might make the customer happy enough to keep them coming back.
Alignment to Heuristic:
I think this problem best aligns with the flexibility and efficiency of use heuristic. I
chose this one because it is supposed to “speed up the interaction for the expert user
such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users.”
Task 4: Assume/pretend that it is Monday at 3:30p.m., and you plan to
prepare the spicy meal on Saturday night. Will the meal arrive in time?
Summary for Both Testers:
Highlights
The testers didn’t have a whole lot of problems on this task. The only thing they
did face was that the Four Cheese Mac ‘n’ Cheese in a mug was sold out. Everything
else that was mentioned was things the testers wanted to change about the checkout.
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 3 4 3.5
Success Rate 100% 100% 100%

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Tester #1 made the comment, “I wish that the checkout was a full screen thing because
I don’t like it just being off to the side.”
Biggest Problem
When trying to checkout everything went smoothly until they got to the part after
picking when the box ships. The site told them both that the Four Cheese Mac ‘n’
Cheese in a mug was sold out but not until they got half way through the checkout
process. The testers thought that Chef’d could have told them before like when picking
out the meals, so they didn’t have to go all the way back to the beginning.
Alignment to Heuristic:
The heuristic this problem best aligns with is error prevention. The heuristic is
defined as “even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a
problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or
check for them and present users with a. confirmation option before they commit to the
action.” If Chef’d put at the beginning that the Four Cheese Mac ‘n’ Cheese was sold
out they wouldn’t have problems down the road during the checkout process.
Final Site Thoughts
Overall both testers thought that the whole meal plan was too expensive for them even
if their “rich aunt” was paying for it. “The site was pretty simple to use though,” said
Jack. Tori said that she liked how easy the search bar worked and that it looked cool.
Jack wanted the site to plan out when you should make the meals like an actual meal
plan with what times the meals should be made up and when you should be eating
them. Jack also pointed out that the box gives you fruits and snacks for five days but

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you can only get 2 meals. They could give you more meals instead of giving you five
day’s worth of fruits and snacks. The testers didn’t have too many differences. Although
Tori did find things a little faster than Jack.
Recommendations to improve user experience
Single problem being fixed: Task 1: User’s didn’t know what the price was until
basically the end.
Problem Improvement:
What I plan on doing to fix the problem is add the prices to the page where the
customer picks how many meals the want in their meal plan.
This picture above is what the website looks like now. What I added was the
prices of how much each meal would cost under the number of meals.

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This is the what the site could look like with the prices added. I think it will
definitely help customers make the right decision for what meal plan best suits them. It’s
a simple fix. Adding the prices for the different amount of meals allows user to know
what they are getting into without having to go through the entire process.