This paper is from a series of tests conducted to gather information about how well Chefs.com is runnining and what could be done to improve the overall site for excellent user satisfaction

1. Dominic Thomas
March 3, 2018
Usability Test for Chefd.com
Test Preparation
I prepared for conducting the test by taking it myself. With me having a solid
understanding of the tasks at hand I can improvise to some extent if need be. When I took the
test, I understood the color scheme and that the orange basically was “yes” and grey was “no” I
noticed that with the available allowance I can only afford one meal. I clicked on Navigating to
selecting which days were confusing at first due to the fact that the numbers didn’t specify to me;
I had to guess and check to see if I was on the right path. After I was able to make a meal plan,
the next task was to build a spicy meal. The problem was that they didn’t have any meals that
were “spicy”. The “closest thing was a mild meal. For Task three it was easy to find the calories
for the “Grab ‘n’ Go’s” so hopefully my testers shouldn’t have an issue there. Finally, the last
task was a pain because a customer would have to go to the very end to see if a meal could be
delivered but they wouldn’t be able to delivered. The earliest would be a following 2 weeks.
Choosing Participants
Tester 1: Jacob Kelow
Graduate Assistant & Academic Success Coach. 24 years old. Spends about 84 hours a week
online with 60% of time focused on browsing and 40% on online shopping. Been using the
internet for many years and claims to have higher experience when using the internet. I’ve

2. known Jacob for about a year but I wouldn’t say we are friends just as yet but strong
acquaintances. He is an ideal tester because he is about helping another student achieve through
grades. We have that type of connection; the want to help others.
Environment for Tester 1:
 Location: 2nd floor of campus library. This location was chosen because the tester
spends most of his free time surfing the web here. Free time comes in between meeting
sessions or if someone doesn’t show up for their meeting.
 Physical Envirnoment: Directly under florescent lighting. Overall quiet setting; a
mother was there with her baby for the first part of the test but had no visual effect.
 Technical Envirnonment: Using School issued laptop (HP EliteBook). Connected to
the school Wi-Fi. Before the test was started the Wi-Fi went down five beforehand so I
anticipated speed and page reaction time may be impacted, and was willing to adapt to
the challenge if appeared. Used Google Chrome, with no add-ons or no extra zoom
(90%).
Tester 2: Byron Pinkerton
Mail man & basketball coach. 27 years old. Spends on average 60 hours a week online. States
that 90% is some sort of online shopping. Been using the internet heavily since high school. We
have known each other for about 10 years. We have a strong bond that was built on strong state
of mind. He is an ideal tester because, he is always interested in trying something new and trying
to further his knowledge on the internet.
Environment for Tester 2:

3.  Location: His apartment. This location was chosen because this is where most of his
online shopping is done.
 Physical Environment: Replaced lightbulbs in his living room before the idea of doing
the test started. Has a little lap dog that runs around wanting to play. Also his younger
brother was in the house looking for something to eat. Before the start of the test he left
his phone in another room while the test was being conducted
 Technical Environment: Laptop computer, an older model of HP using spectrum high
speed internet at 100 Mbps. Used Google chrome with no extra add-ons and no extra
zoom.
Test Results
Initial Site Thoughts
Both testers were intrigued by the initial color scheme and how wonderful the pictures of the
food look. Tester 1 was impressed about the partnership and how Chefd.com has celebrity
connections. Tester 2 however, was more impressed with the different options of meals. They
noticed that there are over 650 meals and wondered how good the meals must be.
Task 1: Build a Spoon University meal plan and determine the total weekly cost.
Summary for Both Testers:

4. Tester1 Tester2 Average
Average Satisfaction 3.4 2.5 2.95
SuccessRate 100% 50% 75%
Highlights
1. Testers were confused between the color scheme when selecting the allergies and when
what they liked.
2. Testers were unsure on what the numbers 0-7 meant when selecting meals on “Plan
Type”
3. The testers questioned why the scroll bar didn’t go back up to the top.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem would be the problem of distinction between the orange and grey color
scheme. While the primary color scheme of Chefd.com is orange, the idea of orange meaning
“yes” wasn’t explained when navigating to create the foundations of what a user what their meal
to consist of. When Tester 1 proceeded with this task, everything was smooth and easy until the
“I’m allergic to” came up. At first it was a brief pause of what does the grey mean. After a few
minutes of questioning himself and looking up and down the page he figured that the grey would
mean “no”. After that was solved the next section, “I like meals that include” created another
issue. This caused Tester 1 to turn his head sideways trying to understand the meaning of why
everything was in orange. A brief head scratch and then it made sense to Tester 1. “Oh so that’s
how it’s supposed to go? Okay G I think I got it now.” The same issue appeared with Tester 2
except it took a bit longer to realize that grey meant “no” and orange meant “yes”. His responses

5. were “Dom wtf does this even mean? Wait, hold up…nah Dom talk to me. What does the
orange…oh no, never-mind I think I got it now.” Both Testers showed hesitation before making
choices on what to choose.
Alignment to Heuristic:
Consistency and standards; This heuristic matches the problem because the actions didn’t mean
the same thing when going through the process. By definition this heuristic is explained by
“users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same
thing. Follow platform conventions.
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:
Tester1 Tester2 Average
Average Satisfaction 4 4 4
SuccessRate 100% 100% 100%
Highlights
1. Both testers were irritated by the fact that they would have to start over when trying to
add a spicy meal.
2. Testers were confused as to what constituted as a spicy meal, due to the fact that there
was none available. The question raised if “mild is considered a spicy meal?”

6. 3. Of the available “spicy” meals none looked appetizing. There was a lack of options
available for both testers.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem here was the issue of there are no true spicy meals and there is a complete
lack of available items to choose from. Both Testers stressed the issue of why there aren’t more
choices and why isn’t there a complete spicy choice and not just a mild option. With only options
of a Buffalo chicken grill cheese and a chicken quesadilla for top spicy meals left my Testers
wondering if they made a mistake in the task I asked them to perform. Tester 1 restarted the
whole process by accident when he hit the back button on accident after he was finished looking
at a product. This brought up another issue to where he wished he didn’t have to start over every
time the back button was hit. He also pointed out that the “x” button wasn’t noticeable at the
bottom of the page, it only stayed at the top so he forgot about it.
Alignment to Heuristic
User control and Freedom. This heuristic matches the problem because there was the source of
the undo was out of sight from the testers. This caused an extended dialogue within themselves
about the error of restarting which angered them.
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.
Tester1 Tester2 Average
Average Satisfaction 4.5 5 4.75
SuccessRate 100% 100% 100%

7. Highlights
1. There were slight hesitations about where to find the calorie count at first for both
Testers.
2. There were slight problems reading the nutrition count
3. Nutrition tab blended in with the background, it was a bit challenging to find.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem here was the source of the nutritional information. While both testers
were able to find them after a while, the issue was that they had to search the page for a
minute to find where to click to find the right information needed.
Alignment to heuristic
Match between system and the real world. This heuristic matches because the information
that was need wasn’t able to appear unless directly searched for. With this being a meal
preparation seller-site, any kind of nutritional information is especially necessary for most
consumers.
Task 4: Assume/pretend that it is Monday at 3:330 pm, and you plan to prepare the spicy meal
on Saturday night. Will the meal arrive in time?
Tester1 Tester2 Average
Average Satisfaction 2 2.5 2.25
SuccessRate 75% 75% 75%
Highlights

8. 1. Testers didn’t know meals were available or not until the very end.
2. Testers found that the meal wouldn’t arrive until 13 days later,
3. Testers wish there was an option for another form of delivery.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem here was the fact that the “spicy” meal that the testers chose wouldn’t
be available until a week and a half later. With knowing this information, the testers claimed
how disappointed they would’ve been if they were looking forward to receiving the meal
they chose. With tester 2, he asked why didn’t they do a better job of informing dates before
they went most of the way through checkout just to find out it won’t arrive in time, and that
by then a real customer would’ve just went somewhere else to get it and get it possibly
cheaper.
Alignment to Heuristic
Visibility of system status. This is chosen because throughout the process of meal planning,
there was no indication of a delivery date until the very end. If there was a choice or
information shown when picking meals of when the meal can arrive it would help customers
making a more accurate choice than waiting until the end.
Final Site Thoughts:
Both testers were overall pleased with their experience with Chefd.com. Tester 1 made a
comment, “The site itself isn’t that bad, people just need to do their due diligence to find meals
that they would prefer. There shouldn’t be a strong knock on the site because it’s not to how they
like it. There are over 5 billion people, so there are 5 billion different ways they want the internet
to run. Not everyone gets a choice; that’s life. We just got to live with it sometimes you feel

9. me?” Tester 2 stated, “The site was chill, not too much hiccups, but I see why they made it the
way they did. I salute that fully.” Both testers were satisfied with concepts and how easily they
were able to maneuver through.
Recommendations to improve user experience
Single problem being fixed:
The biggest issue to get fixed would be from task 1, the color
scheme issue and scroll problem.
Problem Improvement:
At first, when selecting allergies there is no real issue yet because
the next button is un-clickable. This makes it so you must choose
something and the grey contrast can give the connotation that
orange means good to go. Seen below in figure 1 is how the layout
is.
The problem starts in figure 2, when right after that the scheme
is completely reversed with no notification to the user. While
testing, I’ve found that the sudden change from some orange to
all orange created a small panic as they were not expecting all
that. At times they thought that they had made a mistake until
they looked for a bit to realize that nothing was wrong. A fix to
this would be to keep the same scheme using the grey and
Figure 1
Figure 2

10. having the user select what they would like their meals to
include before continuing (Figure 3). Next in Figure 4,
once the user clicks next, the page loads but doesn’t start
at the top. When it loads the next page with a task, it
doesn’t show the new task. Users would have to manually
scroll up to proceed.
Figure 3
Figure 4

11. Here in Figure 5, this is how the
following page should start up; the next
task at the very top. Also in Figure 6
there is a button to show that the
process is finished and that the user can
now view their choices.
Figure 5
Figure 6