Conducting usertests to test the communication prior to sending out letters to 1,2 mio. citizens
CLIENT
ATP & Pentia, Sep 2021 – Dec 2021
MY ROLE
Prepare and facilitate usertests
CHALLENGE & SOLUTION
ATP wanted to test the communication and usability in the letters regarding Børne og Ungeydelse. The challenge was to ensure an easy understanding of complex content for several family constellations that ultimately reduces support calls to Udbetaling Danmark. The letters were tested to spot areas that create confusion or doubt, which ATP subsequently had the opportunity to change before sending letters to 1.2 million citizens.
The time spent on UX ultimately reduced resources and budgets, as well as to ensured that the letters created value for the recipient.
"Rikke's work met all my expectations. She understood what was important to focus on and managed to run the project herself. Always show up positive and constructive, which made me feel comfortable throughout the process.”
Mads-Peter Jakobsen, Business Director & Partner, Pentia
PROCES
Through introductory meetings, we established the overall purpose of the project, wishes and needs as well as the procedure for the test. Our recommendation was to do a semi-moderate user test. The recruitment of the participants was split into specific criteria, so we ensured that the collected data was spread across different user types and thus increase the representativeness of the survey.
PREPARING THE USER TEST
I designed an interview guide that was used to make sure we covered all areas of the letter being tested. ATP contributed with some initial hypotheses that were important to confirm or refute in the test. I chose to let the participants give their immediate reactions to the letter, without guiding them in a particular direction. Therefore, the interview was organized as a think-aloud test in a semi-moderate version. This way, the letter was read through and along the way, the participant marked areas that they stumbled upon or found confusing. I started all interviews with the same background question that we used to compare across the tests. Afterwards the interview was planned as a more open test, so the participant had the opportunity to elaborate and spend time on the questions where they had the most feedback to share. Depending on how much the participant himself steered the interview in a certain direction, I continuously supported with questions, so we ensured that we got around the primary topics from the interview guide.
CONDUCTING THE USER TESTS
The test was held via teams, where the participant was asked to share his screen. The participant read the letter as if they were opening the letter in their mailbox, which meant that they were also asked to skip sections they would not normally read. With the shared screen, I had the opportunity to follow where the participant was reading, and I could see whether the participant scrolled quickly and thus skipped some paragraphs or whether the letter was read in depth.
CONDUCTING THE USER TESTS
Comments from the participants were noted in an excel sheet, which was subsequently marked with a color code (green, yellow, red). The colors indicate whether the given comment was positive, neutral or negatively-charged. This worked well, as one could continuously get an overall picture of the conducted user tests, and whether there were any elements that were consistently found confusing in the letter.
HANDOVER OF FINDINGS
Based on the user tests, we gathered all the results in a presentation. This included critical and non-critical elements that could be evaluated internally. We provided detailed insights on specific sentences, word choice and layout, but most importantly we could deliver the message about whether the letter was easy to understand by the actual target audience and whether it would lead to calls to Udbetaling Danmark. Afterwards ATP have the possibility to rewrite sentences or add/remove paragraphs before the letters were sent out to the larger target group.