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Data Visualization, Usability Testing
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Color Of Change
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION
AARP's Livability Index scores neighborhoods and communities across the U.S. for the services and amenities that impact your life the most.
We redesigned and rebuilt the AARP’s Livability Index website as an ExpressJS application and connected it to AARP’s Livability Index data sources to portray beautiful and useful data visualizations.
PROJECT
USING DATA VIZ TO FIND & COMPARE COMMUNITIES
DISTINGUISHING
FACTORS
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Data Visualization
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Usability Testing
STEP 1: RESEARCH & DISCOVERY
Goal
Learn more about the AARP Livability Index and requirements for the new index.
Research Goals
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Assess how people are currently making housing decisions.
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Assess if people know what livability is.
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Assess the ease of completing key tasks such as searching a location, comparing separate locations, using the map feature, and accessing resources.
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Assess if people understand livability scores, policies, and disparities.
1. COLLABORATIVE
WORKSHOPS
I led a series of 3 workshops with internal AARP stakeholders to uncover, disuss, and prioritize the following elements:
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Site Goals
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Target Audiences
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Key Performance Indicators
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Website Likes, Dislikes, Ideas
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Design Preferences
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Technological Requirements
2. USABILITY
TESTING
I conducted a series of unmoderated usability testing on UserZoom Go, in which we uncovered areas of success and failures.
Objectives
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Assess the audience’s ability to navigate the site and access key information.
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Assess the ease of completing key tasks such as searching a location, comparing separate locations, using the map feature, and accessing resources.
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Assess if people understand livability scores, policies, and disparities.
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Assess the audience’s overall impressions of the site.
Key Findings
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Testers had trouble interpreting figures related to total livability and category scores.
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Testers did not understand how scores are calculated.
3. CURRENT SITE
REVIEW
I conducted an expert review of the current website and data visualizations based on my trainings and experience in data visualization and digital products.
"I see things about sharing the score or details of the score, but I don't see anything obvious about how the score is tabulated so that's a little bit frustrating to me."
Tester
"I guess they're a 64 - seems a little low"
Tester
"Looks like it's 64, which is pretty high"
Tester
5. COMPARATOR
ANALYSIS
We looked at comparators identified by AARP and also chose top websites in areas including search, livability, and mapping to pull inspiration from.
We reviewed: Airbnb, AreaVibes, City Health Dashboard, Data2Go, Fitbit, Niche, Opportunity Atlas, Redfin, Teleport
Key Findings
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The site is too text-heavy, too grey, and has an inefficient use of space.
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Key features, such as the ability to be able to compare communities, were buried and hard to find and not intuitive to use
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The site could better guide people through the features and visualizations.
Objectives
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Understand how audiences are currently making decisions on where to live.
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Understand how policymakers are making decisions around housing policy.
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Validate assumptions about audience needs, wants, and behaviors identified in discovery workshops.
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Identify areas of success and opportunities for improvement based on the audience's past experiences on the website.
4. AUDIENCE
INTERVIEWS
I spoke with 8 members of priority audiences to better understand how they make livability decisions.
STEP 2: UPDATE THE SITEMAP
We removed a lot of stand-alone pages, combined content in a detailed content strategy plan, simplified the interface, and migrated most of the tools and features to be on one main page.
Key Findings
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Consumers base livaibility decisions based on price, safety, proximity, culture, personal connections, and environment.
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Consumers want more transparency into the data sources.
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Consumers want guidance on what their "next step" should be, such as additional resources or local guides.
Users struggled with finding key features, which were hidden in the grey menu bar. The pages were also repetitive in terms of content.
We streamlined the menu to have very clear pathways for people to find data sources easily (a highly requested feature) as well as learn more about the tool. The main page contains all the data visualization and comparison features.
Objectives
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Review best practices for data visualizations.
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Identify what works well or not well for the comparators.
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Craft recommendations for AARP.
Landing Page: Original Website
Landing Page: Wireframe
Landing Page: Current Website
Scoring Data Viz: Original Website
Scoring Data Viz: Wireframe
Scoring Data Viz: Current Website
Location Comparison Data Viz: Original Website
Location Comparison Data Viz: Wireframe
Location Comparison Data Viz: Current Website
Impact
Customer engagement and user satisfaction has increased on the website. Additional usability testing and iterative design has continued to improve the data visualizations and usability of the tool's features.
WHAT’S NEXT STARTS HERE.
Get in touch through LinkedIn.
STEP 3: WIREFRAME
We redesigned each page and the data visualization of the tool. See three updates below to the Landing Page, Scoring Data Viz, and Location Comparison Data Viz.
Overall Index Goals
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Help people make better housing choices
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Help people understand what livability is
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Convey information about how the metrics/scores overall were calculated and provide context for these numbers
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Showcase how policies impact communities
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Become the go-to resource for livability
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Create livable communities where people can thrive as they age
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Integrate with other AARP resources on livable resources & housing
Priority Audiences
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Consumers
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Decisionmakers
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Media
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Researchers & Experts in Livability
Participants
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Test with up to 12 audience members with a focus on consumers.
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Forum One will conduct tests remotely on desktop and mobile using the tool, Validately. Validately is a usability testing tool that captures video of the test participant's screen interactions.