Heuristic evaluation project for the UX Design Program @ BrainStation
Jane Lee, Krishna Rana, Isabella Kuo
10 hours
There were two presentations to stakeholders: one to outline our heuristic evaluation and obtain approval for our suggestions for improvement, and another to present the redesign based on our usability recommendations.
Project brief for the two stakeholder presentations
Disclaimer: This heuristic evaluation of UPS's user interface was conducted solely for educational purposes. It is not endorsed by or affiliated with UPS.
Who is UPS?
UPS is the largest package delivery company worldwide. The company serves more than 200 countries and territories and deliver 6.2 billion packages during the year. Many of these shipments are done through digital means as there are around 7000 mobile app downloads daily.
There are currently 4 digital solutions, including a web app, the web app's mobile viewport, and native iOS and native Android apps.
We proposed a redesign of the iOS app because it has the lowest user ratings, so we believe it has the most area of improvement and will in turn have the greatest impact on user satisfaction. For comparison, the Android app has 3.9 stars with 96k reviews, while the iOS app only has 1.6 stars with 1k reviews. Improving the usability of the iOS app will allow UPS to better serve the portion of customers who are iOS users. We also chose to focus on the iOS app as it is vital for businesses to provide good mobile user experiences with the increasing prevalence of mobile solutions in our daily lives.
We evaluated the app’s user interface based on Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics, rating the severity of an issue against 3 factors (the frequency of occurrence, impact if it occurs, and the problem's persistence) on a scale of 0-4.
Seeing as UPS is a shipment delivery company, we conducted our evaluation on the main task flow of shipping a package. We found a number of usability issues, and focused our redesign proposal on improving the issues that would require lower effort to fix and provide higher value to the users.
What design constraints did we follow?
To ensure that we were working with existing brand colors and typography for our redesign, Jane carried out a brand analysis of the web app, which was the most updated digital solution.
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform and industry conventions.
Usability issue: There is a lack of internal consistency with the UPS web app, particularly between the colors, logo, copy, and input field requirements. We rated this a 1 on the severity scale as a cosmetic issue, as it may cause some hesitation for users who go through this task flow on a different interface (e.g. web app).
Recommended solution: To better adhere to this heuristic, we would do the following:
Change the brown and yellow to reflect the shades on the web app
Update the logo on the top left
Change the copy from "Ship" to "Create a Shipment"
Change the copy from "Company or Name" to "Full Name or Company Name"
Make the email and phone number fields mandatory
This would help UPS stick to their brand identity and have internal consistency with the task flow on their web solution. These redesigns were done by me.
The design should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time.
Usability issue: It is difficult for users to see where they currently are in the shipping process. The review screen lacks visible status as the last step in the process. We rated this a 2 on the severity scale as a minor problem, because the user is still able to complete their task, but it would require some effort to find out the results of their prior interactions.
Recommended solution: To better adhere to this heuristic, we suggested adding a progress bar to indicate how many steps are left in the flow. We would also include header titles such as "addresses" and "Review" to give users more information about their current progress. This gives users more predictability over what will happen as they click the "Continue" button. These redesigns were done by me.
It’s best if the system doesn’t need any additional explanation. However, it may be necessary to provide documentation to help users understand how to complete their tasks.
Usability issue: It is not specified what counts as a large package, which would change how they package their shipment and add extra charges to their total. We rated this a 3 on the severity scale as a major problem, as it may cause frustration at the end of the task flow if they did not anticipate the results.
Recommended solution: We would add a question mark icon right next to the text, so that the documentation is contextual. Once tapped on, a pop-up containing help text would explain what is considered a large package, as well as its implications. As there are different cost breakdowns and packaging instructions, we can include a link for users to access further details easily. Users would then be able to access any information needed to complete their subtask of selecting different service options. This redesign was done by Krishna.
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no error codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
Usability issue: This error message appears in a contextually irrelevant screen. It warns about the postal code and province not matching, which was filled in on a previous screen and not the current shipment information screen. We rated this a 3 on the severity scale as a major problem, because it delays the user from completing their task as they now need to locate and recover from the error themselves.
Recommended solution: We would remove the technical language and relocate the error message to the most relevant input field, which is the postal code field. We would add a red box around the field and an exclamation mark to help users better identify and recover from this error. This redesign was done by Krishna.
Users often perform actions by mistake. They need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted action without having to go through an extended process.
Usability issue: On the review screen, the 'Edit' button takes users back to the relevant step of the process to make their changes, but also requires the user to go through any subsequent steps of the task flow again. We rated this a 2 on the severity scale as a minor problem, as it causes frustrations for the user to repeat actions unnecessarily.
Recommended solution: We would use a 'Go back to review' button in replacement of the 'Continue' button, so that users can directly access the Review screen without going through an extended process. This gives users more control and freedom to navigate and change their shipping information. (We would also recommend changing the text color to black for better accessibility.) This redesign was done by Krishna.
Heuristic evaluations should not be the only source of data regarding usability issues — the future scope of this project involves user testing in order to supplement our analysis. I would be keen to test out our recommendations to see how our suggested design, compared to the current design, fares with users.
And that’s a wrap! If you have any questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to contact me.
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