Understanding a Younger’s Audience Interest in Attending Caribbean Cultural Events
Braata Productions Inc. is a non-profit Performing Arts Company focused on cultivating an environment in which Caribbean culture & heritage can be experienced by all members of the New York community. Their primary engagements include theatrical productions, music, and folk art, they also curate community education and outreach programs.
My Role
Research
Moderated User Interview
Data Analysis
Information Architecture
Recommendations
Tools
Figma
Miro
Google Form
Optimal Workshop
Team
Isabel Bai
Cecilia Jakovljevic
Hannah Ramirez
Kailen Santos
Duration
2 months
Process
Challenge
The business challenge that we wanted to solve for Brataa was to get people to buy tickets to artist's shows, get people to donate, and increase engagement on Braata’s website
How might we increase engagement on Braata's website for younger people to attend events, and donate?
Research
Research Objectives
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Discover the younger generation’s perception of Braata.
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Gauge the audience’s interest in attending Braata events based on the website.
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Discover how to showcase the variety of programs Braata has to offer with the goal of getting more people involved.
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Make the information about Braata and their programming more consistent and easier to discover.
Target Audience
Based on our initial meeting with Braata Production, the research group understood that Braata’s goal is to attract a younger and more diverse audience.
Therefore we defined the target audience for our usability testing as people of Caribbean Descent, or interested in Caribbean Culture aged 18-39.
Two personas were created to best reflect our target audience
Persona 1
Persona 2
Interview Screening
Our team sent out a short google survey via craigslist and the Pratt School of Information mailing list to recruit participants and find out if people went to cultural events, predominantly Caribbean events.
out of 55 responses, 10 Participants were selected for user testing Interview
4 Caribbean descent | 6 Interested in Caribbean Culture
Questions asked:
General Demographics Questions
How often do you attend cultural events?
How interested are you in Caribbean culture?
Testing
User testing sessions were conducted via Google Meet with most sessions run by two members of the team. All sessions consisted of two parts: a card sort and a moderated user testing session. Each test was allotted 60 minutes where participants completed a card sort, a pre-test questionnaire, five tasks each followed by post-task questions, and a post-test questionnaire.
Card Sorting
Participants were asked to sort a series of 30 items into categories. Participants could group the cards in any way that they deemed the best fit. The card sorting informed our team on how to organize the content of the website better and helped us indicate how the header navigation of the website should be formatted.
Card sorting Findings
The card sort results mostly confirmed the current architecture. However, a couple of key differences were noted between the current website and how users organized the information:
People tended to not group together what is currently known as Braata’s “Program” section.
1
Users tended to group watching past performances of Braata Productions with music.
2
The moderated user testing confirmed these findings and solutions are given later within the “About/Programs” and "Performances" sections.
Moderated Remote User Testing
After the card sort, we moved on to the moderated user testing portion of the test. Before starting, we asked participants the following questions to get a better understanding of their relevant background:
Can you give us a little background about yourself?
Why are you interested in Caribbean culture?
[YES] What type of Caribbean culture events have you attended in the past?
[NO] What type of cultural events are you interested in?
Once a background for the participant was established, participants were asked to complete five tasks. During this section, participants shared their screens and were encouraged to think out loud about their decision-making process and to feel free to voice their honest opinion. The five tasks are as follows:
Browse the Braata Productions’ website.
Learn more about Braata. Explore events to attend.
Explore videos of past performances Braata has offered.
Find ways to support Braata.
Task 1
Task 2
Task 3
Task 4
Data Analysis
The findings were then consolidated using affinity mapping, allowing us to assess patterns and trends and effectively pinpoint solutions that alleviate testers' experiences while using the website.
Key Findings & Recommendation
Key Findings:
Date and location were two data points people often looked for first to see if they were interested in attending an event. Adding more context to events informations
Recommendations:
Clear event information, context about the events, making “Events” it’s own header, and add Covid-19 Policy banner at the top of any upcoming event page
1
Events / Upcoming Events
Key findings: Visual clutter and inconsistencies, information overload
(difficulty finding relevant information)
Recommendations: Consolidate duplicate content with proper naming
2
Homepage
Recommendations:
Remove Programs tab in Nav Bar and add an upcoming events section
3
About/programs
Key Findings:
Lack of Past Production overview/information and lack of consistent past production information, confusion of the Media page
Recommendations:
Give overview of past productions, make events more consistent in information offered, add more detail about the production itself, remove Media page
4
Past Productions
Key Findings:
Lack of Information and Motivation, too many donation locations
Recommendations:
Clarify donating by email, make amazon smile more visible and explain what it is, add a Video Requesting Donations, Consolidate Donations, Add Venmo option, have only one donation platform
5
Donation
Key Findings:
Lack of information for what users would be volunteering for
Recommendations:
A page dedicated to information about volunteering for Braata
6
Volunteer
SOLUTIONS
Events
Findings
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Participants noticed a lack of consistency in visuals and information offered between different events
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Participants liked seeing media from past events to gauge their interest in current events.
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Some users missed the “Buy Tickets” button.
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Users were not reading the COVID-19 safety policy pop-up.
Recommendations
Upcoming Events
Findings
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Participants were having trouble distinguishing between events still available to attend and events that had ended.
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Users did not notice the date or location of an event until they had already become invested, leading to disappointment
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Users didn’t have enough information about events to make a judgment about whether they wanted to go to an event or not.
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Many users didn’t realize they were looking at a virtual event, Despite “Virtual” being in the title
Recommendations
Homepage
Findings
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The carousel moves too quickly, with a lot of information
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Homepage Body has a lack of information
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The footer contains duplicate content and ambiguous terms "let's email you doesn't specify what you're signing up to"
Recommendations
About / Programs
Findings
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The overview needs more context from the programs
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Participants who engaged with the promotional videos were much more receptive to the events “Instead of including so much about Braata as an organization, I wish the website provided more information about the culture and context."
Recommendations
Past Production
Findings
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The overview needs more context from the programs.
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Participants who engaged with the promotional videos were much more receptive to the events "Instead of including so much about Braata as an organization, I wish the website provided more information about the culture and context."
Recommendations
Donation
Findings
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Users Need More Information and Motivation for support
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Having multiple locations to donate was frustrating to users
Recommendations
Volunteer
Findings
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When visiting the Volunteer Page on Braata's website users were unable to find any information about what volunteering entails. The lack of information led users to lose interest in signing up or sends them looking for other ways to support the organization, rather than volunteering.
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New visitors to this page aren’t provided with the necessary information to understand what volunteering potentially entails.
Recommendations
Reflection
Overall feedback!
The findings revealed that the information provided on the website was all fairly relevant, but that different areas of the website could be highlighted differently. With an improved layout of the information about the organization and the events they host, users may be able to feel the excitement of Braata slightly more
Next Steps!
Our team is currently working with the client and providing testing data to help them redesign the website. We are confident that by implementing our recommendations, the overall usability of Braata Production can be improved.
Key Lessons Learned!
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When Interviewing in Moderated user testing you have to be open to participants who might not be as responsive.
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The potential deviation between user tests and the actual user's experience
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Internet quality may impact the completeness of the usability testing