EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year program (also known as EOY) was created to recognize the accomplishments and efforts of exceptional entrepreneurs in the U.S. and around the world who’ve created products and services that have made a significant impact. EOY is in more than 145 cities and 60 countries worldwide. The final event of the program takes each year’s country level winners to Monaco, where they are inducted into the World Entrepreneur of the Year Hall of Fame.

I did a comprehensive review of the work that was already done (several screens), reviewed UX/UI discrepancies, and studied the results of the usability testing. I formed a “plan of attack” based on feedback from the UAT to address user pain points, created additional screens to user flows, and ensured that new and updated designs supported users’ mental models and EOY goals.

Goals:

• Evaluate the usability of the EOY 3.0

• Gain insights

• Obtain feedback

• Evaluate metrics to obtain BUX score

Process:

• Remote moderated — Think Aloud

• 8 participants

• 30 minute session for each participant

• Expectancy testing, completion rates, SUS score, SUS Plus score methodologies

Problem:

• 02 - Notifications: 40% completion

• 5 out of 8 participants clicked ‘messages’ within the menu.

• Participants thoughts: “Notifications was odd. A notification is a reminder, something I have to do, not a message.”

• Participants were confused as to whether or not notifications were conversations between themselves and other participants.

Solution:

• Treat the notifications icon as a generic indicator for new information.

• Separate messages and notifications into tabs. When users select the notification icon, they are directed by default to whichever tab that has new information.

• The “messages” link in the main menu can still take users to the “Messages” tab only, where users create/view messages between themselves and other participants.

• Notifications are a separate tab of reminders from EOY judges.

Problem:

• 03 - Interview: 0% completion

• 8 out of 8 participants mistakenly clicked on ‘Interview’ within the timeline

• Participants did not consider “Interview” to be an event. They expected to see full details by clicking/tapping on the Interview header.

• Background color used for “Past Accomplishments” and “Interview” are the same shade of green. 

Solution:

• Information was running together here, so clearly separating content, and what state the participant was in was important.

• To remove confusion from the timeline, showing past events as a filled in check mark, current status as filled green, and any future events as outlines brought clarity to participants about “past, present, and future” events.

• Users are able to see full details of any item by tapping on the header or descriptive text. Links would take users further into the task flow when additional confirmation is required.