Over the past 7 weeks I have learned all about Usability Studies in my “Understanding Your Audience” class at Quinnipiac University. I read Understanding Your Users and UX Methods: A Quick Guide to User Experience Research Methods. This was the ultimate crash course and introduction to UX for me, and I had no idea what I was getting into!

I can admit I did not genuinely know what UX was all about when I started this course, but I was interested to learn. I quickly realized UX is all about research, studies, and analysis on any given platform, product, design, etc. In the beginning, it was a little rough. I am not used to creating reports, launching surveys, and analyzing results. Yeah, I’ve taken a survey before (who hasn’t?), but I had never deployed them myself, never-mind analyzed them. Now that I have taken this course, I can absolutely appreciate when a website or a design is made well. I can recognize when I have a good experience and know that it’s because of UX!

During this class, I chose a website that I thought could use some help. A good friend of mine, Chris Darrow, lives and farms on an incredible Daylily farm, called Olallie Daylily Gardens. I had worked there a few summers ago and absolutely loved it. I can understand that farmers aren’t tach-savvy, and nor should they have to be! So, I chose his website to be the subject of my research: https://www.daylilygarden.com/.

For my first ever UX research report, I deployed many research methods including:

• Interviews
• Surveys
• Card Sorting
• Heuristic Evaluation
• System Usability Scale
• AS-IS and TO-BE Analysis
• Usability Testing

I analyzed the results from these tests and came up with simple solutions to improve his website. Overall, I enjoyed learning about this process and am happy to have taken this class. The report can be viewed here:

I am very interested in learning further about website design and am very excited for my next course starting in two weeks, Web Technologies! See you next time!