Colorado Mountain School

Website evaluation and usability study

Overview

Colorado Mountain School is a premier hiking and mountaineering guide operating throughout the Rocky Mountains and beyond. They asked me and my team to evaluate their current site and look for areas of improvement.

ROLE

  • UX Researcher

  • Consultant

Team Members

  • Sami Heggem

  • Jenna Malzacher

METHODS USED

  • Usability Review

  • Heuristic analysis

  • Concurrent Think-Aloud Protocol

  • Cognitive Walkthrough

  • Evaluative Research

  • Usability Testing

  • Affinity Diagramming


 

TOOLS

  • Figma

  • Trello

  • Zoom

  • Otter.ai

  • Google Docs

  • Google Sheets

  • Pen and paper

DELIVERABLES

 The Challenge

Colorado Mountain School is seeking to increase conversion rate on their website (coloradomountainschool.com) through a better understanding of their users’ needs and desires.

The logo for the Colorado Mountain School

CMS’s logo

 

Organization Goals

  • Share the power of the mountains with adventurers who want to learn and explore

  • Create extraordinary adventures and experiences unmatched in the industry

  • Educate and mentor those passionate about discovery (external and internal)

  • Improve quality of life for employees to attract the country’s best guides and staff

site goals

  • Attract affluent adventurers and groups nationwide, highlighting CMS’s unique location and access to the outdoors

  • Lean into our reputation as a mountain educator

  • Be accessible to a wide range of visitors and potential clients

  • Maximize traffic and conversion rate (sales of classes)

 The Process

 

Initial Research

I first performed a partial site content audit to get a sense of the website’s strengths and areas for growth, then completed a usability review and heuristic analysis based on the 20 heuristic categories from Susan Weinschenk and Dean Barker.

I limited mine to just 10 of the 20, and wrote out yes or no questions to help put them into a suitable context for the site.

Main takeaways:

  • The site was generally in a positive state, with mostly minor adjustments needing to be made, and relatively few errors

  • The large amount and variety of content made the site somewhat unwieldy, with large blocks of text obscuring the main takeaways of each page

Heuristic categories used (found on page two of the document linked below)

A screenshot of my heuristic analysis

 

Evaluation Review

 
 
two ux designers sitting and working together

Having fun crafting a script with my teammate Jenna

Next, my team and I created a plan of action for usability studies. Taking what we knew from the company’s stated goals, we devised goals, tasks, and scenarios for users to explore during their sessions.

An excerpt of our evaluation plan and script

Scope of this project

Due to the time constraints of this project (five days), my team and I decided to focus on a few key user tasks:

  1. Navigate through the sites many offerings, and complete the process of signing up for a class and arriving at the checkout page

  2. Determine what factors set CMS apart from other rock-climbing and mountaineering schools

  3. Book a private guide to climb a peak

Usability Tests

Once the scripts were set, we assigned moderator and facilitator roles for each usability test. Seven tests were conducted, both in-person and online through Zoom. Results were generally as expected from the heuristic analysis.

Users found that the site:

  • was comprehensive and informative, and instilled trust

  • was fairly easy to navigate

  • had a confusing “Book a Guide” page, with questions and menu options they did not expect

  • had a lack of scannable text

  • did not effectively differentiate itself or its guides from other similar company’s websites.

 
screen capture of Jared conducting a usability test remotely with Zoom

Doing remote usability tests through Zoom

 Synthesis

Once the interviews were done, my team and I synthesized the research in a Trello board, using tags and automation for later grouping and reference.

Excerpt from the team’s Trello board

Findings and recommendations report

With these findings in hand, I created a Findings and Recommendation Report for the company, with detailed analysis and proposals for changes to the site. Below are some excerpted slides from that report.

 

Excerpts from my Findings and Recommendations Report

 

 Conclusion

Colorado Mountain School has a strong site that users found easy to navigate and purchase experiences on. However, there is room for growth in terms of making pages more scannable, and reducing the sometimes overwhelming amounts of text on each page. I’m excited to see the steps they take to improve the site, based on this user research.

Next Steps

  1. CMS needs to work with its developers and copywriters to fine-tune the text throughout the site, making it more digestible for users.

  2. CMS should reconsider their current user flow for booking a private guide, as this task threw off many users.

  3. Adding features such as filters and ‘sort by’ options to the “Meet our Guides” page could add to user trust in the guides, the site, and the company overall.