User-testing Nespresso's new digital interface
Client
Nespresso
Company
VML & Velvet Consulting
Timeline
3 Months
Year
2024
Context
Nespresso France was exploring a refreshed homepage (HP) and enhanced design system to elevate their digital experience. Before rolling out the redesign, they wanted to understand how customers perceived and interacted with the new interface.
What was delivered and how
Work & Contributions
Users recruiting
Client coordination
Conducting user interviews
Observing and note taking
Delivered work
Research plan
Usability testing protocols
Interview scripts
Interview analysis
In collaboration with
UX & Strategy Manager
What we achieved
Project goals
Users' perception of the new HP
Does visitors immediately understand the value proposition ?
Do they find the new HP attractive, engaging and easy to use ?
Does the new HP reflects the premium aspect of the brand ?
Users' evaluation of the new HP
Does the new HP answer to users needs and expectation ?
Does the new HP meet the expected strategic goals set by Nespresso ?
Are the new content and features on-point and informative enough for users ?
Pre-interviews
I helped define research objectives, select participant criteria, and prepare interview scripts.
Choosing the right protocol, and why ?
The decision was to go with moderated interviews as they are best suited for early-stage research when exploring the "why" behind user actions and diagnosing usability issues firsthand.
Guiding the participants through different tasks while trying to understand their thoughts behind every action is key gather raw and honest feedback.
This protocol also allows to create a conversation environment where participants feel more comfortable sharing feedback and revealing insights that unmoderated testing might miss.
Recruiting the right panel
The website represents the primary touchpoint for nearly all Nespresso customers, so in order for most segments to be represented in this project we decided to have at least one customer by segment.
Using the available data in the client CRM, we aimed for recruiting 5 participants :
Customers segmentation : Customers who shop exclusively online, those who exclusively in boutiques and Brand ambassadors.
Geographical disparity : Customers from and outside Paris
Device used : 50% mobile-first users and 50% desktop users
Outlining biases and how to avoid them as a researcher
As a consultants, most important part of our job is to advise our clients about the limitations and quality of the results asked from us. In this context, conducting user interviews often comes with biases attached :
Social Desirability Bias
When participants tend to provide answers that they believe will be viewed favourably by others.
Acquiescence Bias
When participants tend to agree with the interviewer's questions or statements regardless of their true opinions.
In order to limit biased answers, it's very important to avoid leading questions and setup a neutral environment where participants can express their opinions freely without any obligation to be pleasing to the brand or the interviewer.
Interviews
During this phase, I alternated between the roles of interviewer and scribe: leading some interviews and taking detailed notes during others.
Experiencing both perspectives enhanced my skills in active listening, critical questioning, and synthesizing user insights, making me a more versatile contributor to the research process.
Post-interviews
Analysis and pitching to the client the results of the interviews.
Analysing the interviews
I reviewed the interviews recordings to capture missing details, organized all insights in a structured spreadsheet, and analyzed them by goal (homepage, navigation, and overall feedback) to make creating slides for the client presentation easier.
Output preview
Since I can't share the details of the final presentation, I will be trying to share the thought process and the structure used without any actual data.
Highlighting the goals of the project
Keeping the narrative about the initial need of the client.
"First impression test" results
Shared how participants reacted after viewing the new homepage for just 5 seconds, revealing their first impressions and immediate takeaways about the design and brand message.
Explaining the use-cases and criteria
Clearly mapping the tested use cases with our evaluation criteria made it easy to connect user actions with measurable insights.
Measuring success
For each use case, we detailed the task success rate and enriched the results with qualitative feedback from participants to give context and depth to the findings.
The closing statement
—
What We Achieved
Measuring impact for this project can tricky, but we successfully delivered a report that answers to the clients request.