Project

1. VALENTINA DESIGN & CO.
700 Ocean Dr.
Miami, FL 33124
April 17, 2014
WEEBLY CORP.
4321 First St.
New York, NY 10112
Dear Weebly Corporation,
In response to our previous meeting last Wednesday and regarding your request for us to conduct
research on your website, we have accepted your offer. We will promptly perform a usability test
on your website, and will be submitting a report consisting of the following: a plan of action,
research on usability tests, data and surveys, test results, and lastly, a formal analysis of our
findings. We have allocated five team members to collaborate on this project, each specializing
in web design. Each team member is certified to perform usability testing on websites. Our team
has expertise in marketing, in regards to successfully targeting a specific segmentation, and
creating solutions to attract a larger audience. Our team aims to provide beneficial solutions that
will require managing the website, continuously updating it with the latest technology and
software, and enhancing its usability. We identified the following issues relating to your website:
• Drag and drop feature
• Lack of organization
• Irremovable buttons on certain themes
Drag and Drop Feature
All the modules in the Weebly website are interactive and for the most part, easy to understand.
However, the drag and drop feature may confuse users on how the modules are supposed to be
used. It only takes just a few tries to learn how it works, but our goal is to improve the
effectiveness of the drag and drop icons so that the user figures it out on the first attempt. Our
goal is to make Weebly and all its features as user-friendly as possible.
Lack of Organization
The video that was introduced to us in the initial stage of building your website is a very good
resource. However, we believe that not many users will take the time to watch the whole video,
or watch it at all. Because the left side panel containing all the modules is so interactive and
always slides in and out of the page, the user may experience confusion or frustration. These
issues are both minor, and therefore, our team is confident that it can easily be fixed.

2. Irremovable Buttons
Our team experimented with several themes and we found that there are buttons on specific
themes that do not allow the user to delete it or remove it from his or her page. This is also a
minor issue with an easy fix, but it is important that each element implemented on any theme has
the option of being removed from page.
After recognizing these specific issues, we came up with a test. The test will consist of the
following tasks. We have chosen fifteen test subjects ranging from 18-50 years old. The test will
begin by asking the subjects to enter the Weebly site and create a new user account. The next
step will be creating a web page with a series of small tasks to implement on their web page,
such as music, videos, pictures, custom coding, and other features Weebly offers. We will then
follow up with each subject a survey or questionnaire about his or her experience, difficulties,
and comments. For this particular case study, we are requesting a 10% deposit on the total fee of
$75,000.
After evaluating the test results, the main issue that we found was that participants assumed that
once you add an icon to your website that you can automatically edit it. Because of this feature
on the Weebly website, many of our participants became frustrated. Our simple solution to better
deal with this issue is to provide a “Drag and Drop” note on the menu to make customers aware
of how the icons are suppose to be used so they will not spend extra time trying to figure it out.
We hope this course of action and suggestions for your company will help you meet or exceed
your operation management goals that will give you a competitive advantage. We hope to work
with you in the near future and move forward towards executing successful results.
Sincerely,
Valentina Design & Co.
VALENTINA DESIGN & CO.

3. Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
METHODS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
ACTUAL USABILITY TEST. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1
SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4
BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 5
APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 7
List of Illustrations
USABILITY SURVEYS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 8
GRAPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 9
SUPPLEMENTARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 0

4. INTRODUCTION
Website usability is an important aspect of web design, whether you are website users or
websites owners. According to the User Experience Professionals Association, website usability
is the degree to which that website is easy to use and fit the need of the users. The primary
reason to do the usability test is to determine the users’ needs, abilities and values, and their
limitations on using a website. Understanding the user experience is the best practice for the
companies to promote and improve the quality of their websites. Moreover, there are numerous
factors that influence the user experiences, for instances, useful, usable, desirable, findable,
accessible, and credible. In order to enhance the users’ experiences, the content should be able to
fulfill their needs and be easy to use. The design of visual elements must be appealing because
they can provoke emotion and appreciation.
Moreover, the content should be original and fulfill customers’ needs. And the most important
thing is the website must have a credibility so the users can trust in what you are trying to
communicate with them.
Therefore, our team sees this as an opportunity to improve the WEEBLY’S customer satisfaction
and enhance their using experiences. WEEBLY has advantages over other self-built websites
because it is easier and friendlier to use. Moreover, it offers customers the multi-services whether
they want to do a portfolio website, web application, or online store. However, this might not be
enough to satisfy its customers. The purpose of website usability testing is to make the page even
easier and more enjoyable to use. Our team has done researches on various aspects of the
usability testing on WEEBLY, including design process, accessibility, the homepage, page layout,
navigation, heading title and labels, graphics, images, and multimedia.
The following categories listed are our four main usability-testing areas: Homepage, About me
page, My Hobbies page, Contact page. They pages will assist us in finding guidelines for the
usability improvement. We also provide methods, results, and a discussion that includes an
analysis, as well as possible solutions. Our team is confident after conducting the tests and
following through with observation, our findings are both accurate and relevant for your website.
We will strive to improve the website’s performance by maximizing the customers’ experience
allowing them to fully engage in and enjoy your website.

5. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Incorporating extensive research into our report, we have constructed a usability test that
analyzes just how user friendly WEEBLY website builder is. A total of fifteen participants were
chosen, three from each of the following age groups: fifteen to twenty-five, twenty-six to forty,
and forty-one to fifty five years of age. Each participant was timed on the amount of time it took
to complete each task which related to a page created on their website. Within each task were
specific sub tasks that tested how well participants could use common functions and tools of
WEEBLY.
After testing had concluded, we analyzed the data by taking the average time it took participants
to complete each subtask. Finally, data was analyzed by average time it took each age group to
complete each sub tasks to get a better understanding of which age group this website targets and
where it is more user friendly. By analyzing average time completed, along with user/tester
comments and observations, and pre and post- test surveys that overall WEEBLY is easily
accessible, readily understood, and has vital and convenient features. However, we do suggest
improvement with certain features and functions in regards to pop up help functions, easy
overlay editing, removal of button text, conformity within layouts, and pop up information
regarding the drag and drop icons.

6. METHODS
Prior to doing the actual testing and observations, each team member conducted research on
usability testing. We were fortunate enough to find relevant sources that applied to our primary
research study. Because we were all familiar with www.weebly.com for class purposes, we
decided it would be a fun and feasible subject. The increasing rate of emerging entrepreneurs
combined with the technology global widespread, websites are vital for the success of a
company. A website portrays a company’s professionalism, awareness of their product or
service, and an opportunity to attract new clients or retain loyal customers. Also, college
graduates who are looking to create a simple and professional website in order to market
themselves with the use of photos, videos, resumes, and a portfolio to demonstrate their
qualifications and competitive advantage are a great target market for WEEBLY.
After determining specific market segmentations, we began the planning process. We decided
that each team member would conduct a test on three participants, each belonging to a different
age category. The first category of participants consists of teenagers and young adults with ages
ranging from 15 to 24. The next category consists of adults with ages ranging from 25 to 39. The
last category consists of middle-aged adults with ages ranging from 40 to 54.
The next step in the planning process was choosing specific tasks for the usability test. We
decided that each participant must edit four pages within the website. Each page includes four
subtasks the participant must complete while being timed. It is our responsibility to precisely
time each subtask, include any relevant comments providing further explanation behind the data,
and note the number of times each participant needed assistance, as well as the number of errors
each participant made. The pages for the website included the following: Home, About Me,
Hobbies, Contact. We summed up the total time, total errors, and total numbers of assistance for
the subtasks in each page.
After getting the totals for the time, errors, and assists in each page, we computed the average
time for each subtask among all participants. The purpose of the average time was to see what
subtasks took the least and most amount of time. For each subtask, we tried to find a correlation
between the average time and the level of difficulty.
Not only did we formulate raw data and transform it into relevant information, but we also
conducted two surveys: pre-test survey and post-test survey. We required the participant to fill
out the first survey before taking usability test and the second survey after completing the
usability test.
The purpose of the first survey conducted before the usability test was to give us information on
the participant’s demographics, as well as an idea of their skill level with technology or
computers.
The combination of the timed pre tasks and surveys gave us a good generalization about our
sample of participants. It also gave us the ability to make correlations or see trends among the
participants.

7. ORIGINAL USABILITY TEST
Home | Page 1 | Task 1
 SUB TASK 1: Edit the main title (title on all pages) to say “My Webpage”
 SUB TASK 2: Add a slide show (photos already provided). Adjust transition style to mosaic
 SUB TASK 3: Add a page to your webpage titled “My Hobbies”
 SUB TASK 4: Select the option of “no header” for the following page titles: About, Home,
My Hobbies. Choose the “landing page” option for Contact page.
About | Page 2 | Task 2
 SUB TASK 1: Edit the “about” tab to say “about me”
 SUB TASK 2: Add a YouTube video that has been provided for you
 SUB TASK 3: In the main heading section, put your full name, age, and a brief description
about yourself (2-3 sentences). Feel free to change the color of the font.
 SUB TASK 4: Get rid of the social media links in the upper right hand corner, and add them
to the lower left corner. Link at least one of the social media sites. And
delete the links you don’t use
Contact | Page 3 | Task 3
 SUB TASK 1: Add a map of where you go to school or where you work
 SUB TASK 2: Add a contact form. Change the title to “feel free to contact me below”
 SUB TASK 3: Get rid of the icon that reads “button text”
 SUB TASK 4: Re-order your pages so that they now are in the following order: Home,
About, My Hobbies, Contact.
My Hobbies | Page 4 | Task 4
 SUB TASK 1: Add your favorite quote and center in the middle of the page.
 SUB TASK 2: Drag the columns icon under the quote. On the right side, name three
hobbies of interest. On the left side, add a photo of one of those hobbies.
 SUB TASK 3: Link the document we have provided to you on the page.
 SUB TASK 4: Edit the file name so it reads as your full name

8. RESULTS
PRE Test Survey Results
For the WEEBLY usability test pre-survey, the results are the following:
• 75% of the participants are at the intermediate computer expertise level
Description: Moreover, the hours they are spending on the computer per day ranking from
less than 1 hour to more than 8 hours.
• The remaining 25% are very skilled in computer
Description: They spend more than 6 hours a day using computer. None of the participants is
at the beginning computer expertise.
When we asked the question whether they have ever built their own websites before, the results
came out to be the following:
• Minority of 25% answered “Yes”
• Majority of 75% answered “No”
Participants who have ever built the website are a student, a mechanical engineer, and a
computer science professor. For those who have never built a website before they are a medical
assistant, a professional cleaner, a therapist, students, a maintenance technician, retirees, and a
computer science professor.
POST Test Survey Results
The results of the WEEBLY usability test post-survey are shown as the following:
Majority of 25% gave the test a 4 out of 5 in regards to the level of difficulty. 16% of the
participants gave it a 1, which on a scale of 1 to 5 means very easy. Of the 16%, the occupations
consisted of a mechanical engineer and a maintenance technician. Another 16% of the
participants responded with a 2 rating. Overall, none of the participants circled 5 on the scale nor
said the test was very hard.
75% of the participants said that the directions for the test were clear. Nine participates out of the
75% also stated that the main problems they encountered during the testing were not related to
the instructions. In contrast, the three participants (25%) said the directions were not clear at all
and one even expressively states that the they were “awful.”
Twelve participants share their opinions on which task they thought was the easiest:
• Reordering the pages: 5 participants | 33.3%
• Changing the title pages: 3 participants | 20%

9. • Adding pages: 8.3%
• Linking the social media: 8.3%
• Editing hobby page: 8.3%
• Adding a map: 8.3%
The following results are based on what task participants perceived as most difficult:
• Removing the button icon: 41.6%
• Finding icon and adding YouTube were both ranked as the second most difficult, each at
16%.
• Adding the map, linking the social media, and adding a quote were ranked as third most
difficult, each approximately 8.3%.
Nine participants indicate their opinions on what they dislike about Weebly. The primary
problem on this website was there was no directory structure, and that causes them to get loss
and confuse on how to drag and drop the element, and how to edit pages. Some of them point out
that some control features are unclear and they don’t know how to use them. Three out of twelve
participants say that there is not anything they dislike about the website.
However, there are many things that they like about the Weebly. Firstly, Weebly is easy and
friendly to use for all computer skilled level participants. Moreover, there is more variety of
templates to play with. And lastly, operation of the website is faster when comparing to the
similar functional website.
Besides what they liked about the website, they preferred to change one more thing to improve
the website usability. And their responses are showing the directory on how to edit text, and drag
and drop element. Future more, they need a tutorial for beginning users, more language options,
and the website should make all the icon options smaller so the users can see them all in once.
And another comment is the website need to add more themes and make them more appealing.
Additionally, the majority, 83%, replied that they preferred to use Weebly for website building
opposed to a different websites.
EVALUATIONS: Sub Tasks Within Each Task
TASK 
 Sub Task 1:
The first sub task that asked the participants to edit the main title of their webpage that
appeared on all sub pages of the website seemed to be relatively easy. Users seemed to be
somewhat confused as to which title was the main title, and which was the title that appeared
on the individual pages. The average time for this task was 00:37 seconds with 5 total errors
and 3 assists with all the participants. The age group ranging from 41 - 55 had the least
difficulty with this task, with the other two age groups within 00:25 seconds from their time.

10.  Sub Task 2:
Sub Task two asked the participants to add a slide show to their home page by adding six
pictures that we had provided to them, and then editing the style of the slideshow to the
option titled “mosaic”. Three participants did not understand the concept of dragging and
dropping the slideshow add-ons. They tried many times before realizing there was a specific
place you must drop the add-ons and that you could just click the icon and it appear on your
page. Three users also did not understand where to upload the photos, which is not a fault of
WEEBLY. It is assumed that the users that had difficulty with uploading pictures. They were
not very familiar with this practice, which is virtually the same throughout most websites.
We saw a great deal of confusion with one user who had difficulty editing the style of the
slideshow. This participant searched everywhere on the page for the slideshow button,
clicking on any icon he saw, until he realized he must click directly on the slideshow to edit
it. The average time for this task was 1:51 seconds with 9 errors and 13 assists. The age
group with ages ranging from 41 - 55 years age group did the best with this subtask with 1
minute 27 seconds. Followed by 26 - 40 age group with on average 1 minute 46 seconds.
The younger participants were the most inefficient with an average time of 2 minutes 11
seconds.
 Sub Task 3:
Sub Task 3 asked the participants to add a page to their website titled “My Hobbies”. We
observed that two users didn’t know where to add pages and instead selected design and
settings before finally clicking pages. Once users found the “pages” tab they quickly and
easily added another page due to the easy to read button titled “add pages”. Average time it
took the participants to complete this task was 03:01 seconds with three errors and five
assists. The middle age group completed this time the fastest with a time of 1 minute 46
seconds. Close behind was the youngest group with 1 minute 52 seconds. Lastly was the
oldest age group with 5 minutes and 52 seconds.
 Sub Task 4:
Sub task 4 asked the users to do typical task they would want to do to their pages; change the
layout of all their pages. We specifically chose to have the user change the layout of
“home”, “About” and “My Hobbies” to no header so that they might realize the entire
heading disappears along with the button text. Landing page option was selected in order to
complete Task 3, Sub Task 3. User did really well on this task with an average time of 50
seconds with two errors and three assists. Two users had difficulty performing this task
because they didn’t understand what was meant what was asked (edit the layout of the page)
and also did not know where to edit the layout. We believe that the participants did very well
on this task because they were previously introduced to the “pages” tab when they added the
page in the previous tab, which let them become a little more familiar with what can be
edited on the pages tab. The oldest participants had on average the best time completing this
task with 37 seconds. Closely following is the middle age group with 48 seconds, and the
youngest age group within just a second difference.

11. TASK 
 Sub Task 1:
The first subtask in this part of the study asked users to edit the “about” page to say “about
me”. Users did really well on this averaging on 27 seconds in order to finish it. only one of
the users has had a slight problem when he could not really find where to change the name of
the page , but successfully completed the task as soon as he was remind it about navigating
back to the pages section of WEEBLY.
 Sub Task 2:
Subtask 2 had asked users to add a YouTube video to the webpage. This subtask proved to be
more difficult that others for more than just one reason. Users completed it with an average
of 1 minute and 43 seconds while encountering 7 errors and Testers providing them with 15
assists. 3 users were confused by the fact that WEEBLY opens up a sample YouTube video
upon dropping the icon, and 7 including these 3 users had trouble identifying that they
needed to double click inside the video in order to edit.
 Sub Task 3:
This subtask had asked users to provide the name, age and a brief description about the users
and change the font and color if they felt like it. Participants did not have a lot of trouble on
this, and they did it with an average of 1 minute 54 seconds just because it took time to type
the brief description about them. This is not considered any fault or flaw by WEEBLY because
the time it took for participants to complete this subtask was affected a lot by the typing
procedure and thought process to come up with a description.
 Sub Task 4:
The final part of task 4 involved getting rid of the social media icons in the upper right
corner, adding them to the left corner of the website and then linking any account to the
webpage and deleting unnecessary ones. This part caused a lot of confusion to the users since
not all themes had the same design, some had the social media icons in the upper right
corner, others had them in the lower right corner and some of them they were completely
removed. Average time it took users to complete this subtask was 1 minute 43 seconds and
the middle age adults group took twice the period to finish it.
TASK 
 Sub Task 1
The first subtask in this task tackled the issue of adding a map and inserting the location
where each of the participants worked or attended school. It took people on average 1 minute
and 37 seconds to finish, while most users had no trouble doing that. We experienced two
errors and 5 assists during this task, when one of the users tried to enter the name of the
facility but the address did not update so he went back and wrote the address himself.
Another issue we encountered was that one of the users couldn’t get the map to update after
plugging in the information. We assume that this was just a bug acting out.

12.  Sub Task 2:
The second subtask had asked users to add a contact form to their page and edit the title to
“feel free to contact me below”. Users did really well on this task with an average of 39
seconds to finish it. We found 13 errors and provided 13 assists, but all these errors are not as
important since even after that it only took them a small amount of time to finish it. We
assume that it was not WEEBLY’S fault in this subtask, rather just unfamiliarity with the
concepts of contact form.
 Sub Task 3:
Subtask 3 had users delete the button text that was present by default in the main heading
section. This subtask proved to be the most frustrating and difficult part of our test case since
it took users an average of 2 minutes and 4 seconds and one out of 15 participants only
figured out how to successfully remove it. Most of our users were extremely frustrated with
this simple matter. Some of their input suggested that this feature lacks professionalism and
really makes the design of the page look really bad.
 Sub Task 4:
Subtask 4 had asked users to reorder the pages so they are in a specified order that we
provided for them. Around 42 percent of the users stated that this was the easiest task they
had to do. The average time it took users for this task was 2 minutes and 3 seconds, although
it took 12 out of 15 participants between 30 and 1 minute to finish it, the average seems to be
a little high since two of the participants took around 5 minutes to figure out where to go to
reorder the pages. This, however, is not a flaw WEEBLY’S website. Those who took
substantially longer to reorder the pages are a small percentage.
TASK 
 Sub Task 1:
The first sub task under Task 4 asked the participants to add their favorite quote to their page
and to also center it in the middle of the page. This task seemed to be fairly easy for the
participants from the results that we have collected. One aspect that might have prolonged
the process of this certain task is the difficulty of knowing what is your favorite quote and
whom it is by. The average time for this task was 00:53 seconds with 2 total errors and 5
assists with all of the participants. The 26-40 year old age group did the best on this task
averaging 48 seconds on the sub task.
 Sub Task 2:
This task asked for the participants to drag the columns icon under the quote. On the right
side of the columns, the participants were to name three of their hobbies and on the left side
they were to load a picture of one of their hobbies. Three participants added a text icon to the
column box to type in their assigned writing. This was a clever way to use the tools of
WEEBLY to their advantage. Some of our participants did get mixed up while performing this
particular sub task. Two of our participants made the error of clicking on the text box before
clicking on the column box to add it under the quote. Another error was that one of our
participants thought that you could directly edit the columns once you add them to your page,
which is not the case. The average time for this task was 1:10 seconds with 13 errors and 13
assists. Participants of ages 41-55 years completed the task the fastest with 1 minute and 47

13. seconds. The middle age group was in 00:02 seconds of this time, and the youngest age
group was within 00:09 seconds.
 Sub Task 3:
Task three asked for participants to link the document that was provided to their page. We
observed that one of our participants accidentally added the document instead of linking to
their page like the instructions requested. Another error that occurred during this sub task
was instead of linking the document, a participant clicked on the “embedded code” icon. We
also observed that this task was relatively easy for all of our participants and one thing that
prolonged the time of this sub task was searching for the document on a certain computer.
The average time it took for the participants to complete this task was 00:50 seconds with a
total of 7 errors and 5 assists. Participants with the of ages 15-21 completed this task on
average 41 seconds while the middle group took 56 seconds and the oldest group took 53
seconds.
 Sub Task 4:
Sub Task 4 asked the participants to edit the file name so that the file name will read as their
full name. Users did very well on this task with an average time of 22 seconds with 7 errors
and 3 assists. One participant had difficulty performing this task because they could not edit
the file name because they chose the file document option, which was from sub task 3. We
believe that participants did well on this task because it resembles what you would normally
do on a computer by editing the document name. The downfall of this task was that our
participants could not edit the document title because they selected the document file option;
if they followed the instructions from sub task 3, they would have been able to edit the
document title, which could have been the cause of the errors in sub task 4. Participants with
the of ages 41-55 completed this sub task in 19 seconds on average, while it took the
youngest and middle groups 24 and 25 seconds on average.

14. DISCUSSION & R ECOMMENDATIONS
The purpose of this study was to find out how practical and easy is it to build a website through
WEEBLY. Although the users generally found the test relatively easy, they still encountered some
serious issues that must be immediately addressed.
General
Let’s begin with the design of Weebly website builder. The idea that you had to drag and drop
elements seemed to be confusing to a big portion of our sample. People thought that by clicking
on the icons it would let them edit them, and it took them a while to figure out the drag and drop
feature on their own. A possible solution for this part is just a simple note on the menu that says
“Drag and Drop icon” and highlight the field where it should go into.
Task 1 | Home Page
In the first task we asked the users to modify the homepage of their website, through editing the
main website title, adding a slideshow and adjust the transition, add two pages to the website and
then change the layout of the pages. One of the issues we found in this part was that users did not
distinct between the main title for the website, and the heading for the page itself. This can be
solved by providing a description in the corner of each of those two fields in order to identify
which is which. When it comes to the slideshow, users were confused on how to edit it since
after they placed the icon within the appropriate field they still had to double click in order to
figure out how to edit it. Providing an easy fix to this part is just having the field automatically
open after you input it in the system, and that would avoid having to think about hovering the
mouse over the field , or double clicking it. The other two part of this task were adding pages and
modifying different page layouts which we observed that they were extremely helpful and the
majority of users found it quickly and easily.
Task 2 | About Page
The second task asked the users to change the title of the page about to “about me”, add a
YouTube video to the page, write down a brief description about themselves, and finally get rid
of the social media icons and re-add them while linking their own accounts. This Task seemed to
be fairly easy and straightforward to users. Editing the name of the page and writing a brief
description were practical to use and all users had no issues with them. Adding a YouTube video
caused a slight confusion since after you input the icon, a sample YouTube video pops up and
you have to double click in order to edit it. This can be avoided if after dropping the YouTube
icon the edit field would automatically open to make it easier for users. Another issue that we

15. discovered is that some themes have the social media icons in the upper corner by default, while
others didn’t, and although this is not really a big issue for the usability of the website, but it can
be helpful to have some sort of uniformity within the fields. We suggest that all themes to have
the social media icons or none of them.
Task 3 | Contact Page
The third task required users to work on the contact page. The instructions provided were to add
a map of where they work or attend classes, add a contact form and edit it’s title, get rid of the
icon that reads button text, and then reorder the pages. Features within this task were extremely
helpful to users and easygoing. The simple idea to incorporate a map to a webpage and then
include a section where users can put down comment and reach the editor of the webpage in such
an easy manner were really practical. But the most difficult and frustrating task encountered by
everyone in the sample is getting rid of the button text icon provided in the heading section. The
button text had an extremely bad influence on the users, and provided a lot of discomfort to
them, especially after seeing how easy the website builder was as a whole. We found that
removing the button text altogether was the best fit in order to optimize usability. We suggest
having the button text as one of the options in the menu in case someone wanted it, but since it
provides no value to users and is extremely difficult to remove the best possible solution is to
remove it from the process. Reordering the pages was one of the easiest tasks we asked our users
to do as they stated in their surveys.
Task 4 | My Hobbies Page
The final task of the study had asked users to add a quote to the my hobbies page, then create a
column where they add in one side a list of their hobbies, and some pictures on the other, link a
provided document to their webpage, and then edit the file name so it reads as their full name.
One of the issues encountered in this task was the idea that after implementing the column, you
have to add the text icon in order to type in it. Most users said that it would’ve been a lot easier if
you can just double click on the column and directly type. On the other hand most subtasks here
were rather simple and easy to users. The only solution that we can provide for this task is to
make the option to directly type inside the column available for users since this is what their first
instinct was to do, and that’s what they specified that would make it easier.
Overall Analysis
Overall our observations showed that usability of WEEBLY was quite simple, and provided an
easy and straightforward method to create a website without previous experience or
programming knowledge which is extremely valuable. We also noticed that by the time users
arrived at task 3 and 4, they kind of figured out most of the mechanism used within the website
builder and they seemed to improve a lot which is also an important thing since they got used to
a whole new system pretty quickly.
In order to optimize usability in this case is to just remove or alter this “ticks “that caused
confusion and frustration to users. Through our data research, many testers found that
participants could not successfully accomplish task due to their lack of general computer

16. knowledge (copy & paste, embedding videos, uploading pictures). We would also like to add
that when this website was used with an iPad we saw many more issues in respect to lagging,
freezing, and button sticking which we did not encounter on PCs. We suggest that WEEBLY
becomes more iPad friendly and works more efficiently with Mac software. In addition the
mobile app was considered in our testing and research, however it add to be completely excluded
due to the fact that the app did not work in any aspect. It refused to recognize accounts and
website already made and the layout was severely askew. The simpler the website is, the more
people are going to be drawn to it.
On average the young adults group ranging in from 15 to 24 years old took the shortest time to
finish most subtasks, which basically proves that WEEBLY is most practical when young adults
with intermediate experience and no previous web design experience are using it. On the other
hand, the middle age group that ranges from 40 to 55 years old had the highest time when it
came to navigation between pages and this is clearly shown in the huge variations between
averages in task 1 subtask 3 that had asked users to add two pages to their website. Another issue
that this group found to be hard is to implement and change the social media accounts, and this is
probably because younger groups are more involved in this fields.
The Adult age group that varies from 25 to 39 years old, which is the most group with relevant
experience to this study had 3 significantly higher subtask averages than other groups. These 3
subtasks involved adding a YouTube video, adding a brief description about him or herself, and
implementing a map of where they work. This can be explained by unfamiliarity with the
WEEBLY system, but it is something to look into if WEEBLY is to target that section of the
market.
Aside from the aforementioned distinctions, all other tasks had quite similar averages for all 3
age groups which implies that issues we encountered in this study were more or less universal to
all possible consumers, no matter how experienced in web design, or how old they are.

17. SUMMARY & NEXT STEPS
On a closing note, our team conducted the usability test on WEEBLY to test how easy and user
friendly the website was. In conducting this test, we selected fifteen participants from various
age groups to take pre and post surveys along with the actual usability test itself to better come
up with our analysis, results, and solutions. We gave each participant four tasks, with four
subtasks under each task, to perform and we timed them to see how long each task would take.
Once we conducted all of our tests and surveys, we gathered our information and came up with
main problems that participants ran into while using WEEBLY. After we identified the problems
that we came across, we developed solutions to the problems that were common amongst our
participants.
After completing our portion of testing, we have provided you with ample solutions to correct
the problems that have been discovered in our findings. We hope that you take heed to the
suggestions that we have made because we have spent a great amount of time and effort in this
project like we do with all of our other projects presented to us. The next step in the process is to
correct and change the things that have been brought to your attention. If your company needs
help in correcting the problems, we also provide services that will help correct the issues and
make you website easier to access to your customers. Thank you for your service, and hope to
work with you in the near future.
Sincerely,
Valentina Design & Co.
VALENTINA DESIGN & CO.

18. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bevan, Nigel, et al. "The magic number 5: is it enough for web testing?." CHI'03 extended
abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 2003.
Description: This study tackles the issue of what appropriate number of sample should be taken
in order for a successful web usability test to work. 5 Web usability specialists from the United
states and The united kingdom combined their finding to disprove the though of only a sample of
5 is needed to figure out 80% of the population. WE used this source in order to know how much
participants should we include in this study, and the number we landed on based on this study
and how feasible it is to achieve it is 15 participants.
Horton, Sarah. Access by design: A guide to universal usability for web designers. New Riders,
2013.
Description: The book “a guide to universal usability for web designers“ by Sarah Horton, a
specialist Web designer, and talks about ideas on how to create usability test for webs and what
to base the study on. We found out that we should include audio or video in our study, fonts and
text, images and lists since they are essential in any web design project. We based our subtasks
on what was presented as essential for websites in this study, such as create a slideshow, add a
YouTube video and modify text fonts and colors.
Mariage, Céline, Jean Vanderdonckt, and Costin Pribeanu. "State of the art of web usability
guidelines." The handbook of human factors in web design(2005): 688-700
Description: This part of the book explains an outline of what web usability is and what is it
supposed to do. Based on different opinions, web usability is the process of gathering data about
the ease of a website, and trying to come up with solutions that can be used to improve the
practicality of certain websites. We used information from this source in order to see what were
we supposed to get when creating the usability test, and see what kind of solutions should we
expect.
Meyers, P. J. "25-Point Web Site Usability Checklist [Online]. 2008 [cited 2008 Feb 10]."

19. Description: This study provides a checklist to a web usability developed by a professional.
Meyers has done a lot of work on web usability, and created this checklist that he uses as a must
for every single test he performs. The main points we got out of it is to include 3 sections of
tasks in our study, which should include navigation, accessibility and content. We translated
these 3 sections so they would relate more efficiently to our Weebly test result, but the essence
behind it still is there.
Rinder, Julie M. The Importance of Website Usability Testing. Diss. University of Oregon, 2012.
Description: Rinder is a professor at the university of Oregon, and published this dissertation as
part of her research about how important website usability is. Rinder provided 31 references in
an annotated bibliography that tackles different issue in website usability, and we use this
information provided in trying to come up with what type of audience should we look into, and
what sort of problems should we looking to solve. We figured out a lot of ways to segment our
target and observed what kind of questions we should be asking ourselves in order to achieve
optimal results.
Rubin, Jeffrey, and Dana Chisnell. Handbook of usability testing: how to plan, design, and
conduct effective tests. John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
Description: This book seemed to be extremely valuable to our secondary research. We based
our whole outline on the plan and design of usability testing. The book starts by introducing the
process of usability testing while providing solution on what it is usually used. The second part
guided us step by step on how to create tests that leads to effective results. The last part of the
book handled issues much more complex that gave us an idea on how far to go in our test and
how far should we push ourselves in analyzing the results.

20. APPENDIX
ABOVE: This is a screenshot of an excel sheet containing the data of our participant #7 who
belongs in the young adults category. Notice the four main tasks, each with four unique sub
tasks. On the top row, you can see how much time it took for the participant to complete each
sub task. At the end of each main task is the total time, as well as total number of assists and
errors. Lastly, at the very bottom of the spreadsheet are the total time on all the tasks and the
average time per task. Unfortunately, we could not include the average of the main tasks in
our results.

21. ABOVE: Screenshot of excel spreadsheet containing all data and observations for participant
#8 who is in the adult group and is 29 years old.
BELOW: contains the same type of data as the two previous figures, but it is for participant #9
who was in the middle-aged group (40+ yr.)

22. TEST POST & PRE SURVEYS

23. LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY 1 - 5
This graph demonstrates the amount of participants per ranking. On a scale of 1 to 5, two
people said it was extremely easy. Only 13% chose the level of least amount of difficulty.
We actually only had one person rate the test with 2. We are unsure how to interpret this. For
rankings 3 and 4, they had the same amount of participants put those two options down. Five
participants chose 3 and five participants also chose 4 as a level of difficulty. Lastly, two
people actually considered the test to be very challenging. Luckily, it balances out with the
two other participants who thought it was at the other end of the spectrum, giving it a 1. We
were happy with the results because it shows the majority of the people found it challenging,
but not too difficult where they would get frustrated and discouraged.
Results:
13% of the participants chose 1, the lowest level of difficulty
6% of the participants chose 2.
33% of the participants chose 3
33% of the participants chose 4
13% of the participants chose 5, the highest level of difficulty

24. SUPPLEMENTARY
Screenshots of several participant’s website designs.