Working title: Vegan Dog and Cat

Report Author: Trudy Pachon

Date: 11/30/09

Brief Profile of Users: I tested three people. Two of the people were not vegan and were not interested in vegan dogs. One person had a vegan dog and was interested in the information on the website.

Think Aloud task: Please find at least one vegan dog food recipe and then tell me why it’s acceptable to feed dogs vegan food.
I asked users first to find one recipe for vegan dog food on the website. Then I asked them why the food was good to feed to their dog.

Summary of Think Aloud: There were a couple of typos that came up in the think aloud. It also became immediately obvious with all users that navigation on the site needs to improve.
One of the main points of difficulty was that there was too much information and one of the users had a very had time finding recipes on the site. I had to direct her to the correct page. The navigation to find the resources and nutrition pages was too convoluted and the users had some issues there. They thought the information should be more prominently displayed.
The dog resources pages need to be more prominent and easier to find. I also need to add content to the cats pages. I am not as comfortable with the information on cats and this section requires more research.

Summary of Posttest: All users liked the way the site looked. They all seemed to like the graphic on the top of the page and several users complimented the color scheme. The site presents controversial information, and the colors and feel of the site are non-threatening and soothing.
The vegan dog parent thought that the site was an important addition for the vegan community and wants to help make the site better!

Findings to be Implemented: I learned that the site is somewhat difficult for some users to navigate. I am going to try to set the links on all of the information for dogs easier to use. Right now I have three separate pages on dog information, but probably should have them all more easily linked and have more obvious ways to find relevant information. I also think that it should be more obvious where information is on the site. Maybe a navigation bar on the home page or something similar.
I also found that there are several typos and grammatical errors that I can easily fix and will do so right away.
One user suggested more photos of dogs and cats. I think this is a great idea and want to add more photos to the site. I would also like to add a video in the future as well.

Findings that will not be Implemented: It was also suggested that I remove some of the links or cut down somewhat on the amount of information that the website attempts to present. I don’t want to do that because the point of the website is to answer as many questions as I can about vegan dogs and cats. Perhaps an FAQ page would be useful.
I will try to make the information on the site easier to find. I would love to figure out how to add a search bar specifically for the site.