Assessing site usability and accessibility

Taking a deeper look at their website to find improvements

Overview

Words Beats & Life (WBL) is a hip-hop non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. with a focus on breaking down barriers so students and artists can partake in the resources and opportunities the city has to offer.

Problem

WBL has not done a usability audit in all their years in business and think their website may be hard to navigate for their target audience.

So how can I help WBL understand where there could be improvements and help them make their website more accessible?

Role and team

I'm the sole UX designer for this audit. I delivered a usability and accessibility audit to the stakeholders.
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Getting to know the client

Before starting anything, I wanted to get to know more about WBL.

By speaking to their marketing manager and founder, I was able to understand why we’re doing this audit now, their business, and expectations for their audience upon arriving on the website.

After speaking with these two, I had an idea on what to keep in mind as I go through their website.

Define our building blocks

Define our breakpoints and consider our high level layouts.

Start with our native app

As a starting point to making our apps consistent, the native app should be used as a reference for what screens need to be redesigned since it was recently updated.

Take advantage of this opportunity

If there are any longstanding improvements we've been waiting to do, let's select the ones that make the most sense.

Heuristic evaluation

I decided to do a heuristic evaluation based on Jakob Nielson’s 10 Heuristrics because they're a set of industry standards that are repeatedly referred to. This helps me remain objective and goal-minded.

To prioritize what should be addressed before others, I used Nielson’s severity scale that factored in the frequency, impact, and persistence of the problem. Along with a rating, a screenshot of the applicable heuristic, a short description of the issue, and a recommendation on how to remedy it was included in the audit.

00
No problem

Define our breakpoints and consider our high level layouts.

01
Cosmetic problem only

Need not be fixed unless extra time is available on project

02
Minor usability problem

Fixing this should be given low priority

03
Major usability problem

Important to fix, so should be given high priority

04
Usability catastrophe

Imperative to fix this before product can be released
An example of the screenshots that were taken for the audit report.

Accessibility for Teams

Like with the heuristic evaluation, it was important to have a set of guidelines to refer to for this audit to remain objective. For accessibility, I referred to the Accessibility for Teams website for visual designers.

WCAG

Because this is the first audits done for WBL, I provided brief overview of WCAG and the different levels of accessibility because they wanted to look at accessibility more closely.

By taking the time to explain what WCAG is, this helps give WBL a starting point on where to start if their team would like to establish which level they would like to strive for.
An example of the screenshots that were taken for the audit report.

Reflection

Learning about how to make things more usable and accessibility gave me a newfound appreciation for the two. Not only do these traits help make a good product, but it helps all kinds of users achieve their goals.

What I learned

Have some guidelines on what to look for before you start. Doing an audit on a website can be overwhelming, but having a set of guidelines allows you to know what to look for.

Next time, rather than going page by page to complete the audit, I'd like to start with a cognitive walkthrough of the client's goals for the website. By starting with a walkthrough, I'm more goal-oriented and can see what's going on if the client says they notice a drop rate for a certain action.

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