Project 4: Documentation

Reddit Redesign
Brad Williams
Connor Walls
Milan Patterson
Harrison Rogers
Shumi Marondera

Team 13

Table of Contents
Reddit Redesign 1
Table of Contents 2

Team Members 3

Primary and Secondary Research 4

Survey Results 4

Proto Persona 11

Sketches 12

Usability Testing 14
Script and Tasks (Test 1) 14
Scripts and Tasks (Test 2) 17

Final Design 20
Redesign Changes 21

Next Steps 22

Contributions 23
Milan Patterson 23
Shumi Marondera 23
Brad Williams 23
Connor Walls 23
Harrison Rogers 23
Team Members
Milan Patterson
Senior in Building Information Modeling with a Communication minor.
Brad Willaims
Senior in Computer Graphics Technology with a double major in Web Design
Connor Walls
Junior dual majoring in Game Development and 3D Animation
Harrison Rogers
Senior Computer Graphics Technology with a double major in Web Programming
and Animation
Shumi Marondera
Junior in Web Programming and Design

Primary and Secondary Research

Primary Research - Survey

Customer Feedback Survey Questions

1. How often do you use Reddit?
a. Yes
b. No
2. How often do you use Reddit?
a. Daily
b. 2-3 times a week
c. Once a week
d. Once every 2-3 months
e. Once every 6 months
f. Once a year
3. What is your age?
4. Did it meet your expectations?
a. Yes
b. A Little
c. No
5. Feedback.
6. Suggestions for improvement.

Survey Results
1. Do you use Reddit?
a. Yes (50%)
b. No (50%)
2. How often do you use Reddit?
a. Daily (46.6%)
b. 2-3 times a week (20%)
c. Once a week (13.3%)
d. Once every 2-3 months
(6.7%)
e. Once every 6 months
(6.7%)
f. Once a year (6.7%)
3. What is your age?
a. Less than 18 (3.2%)
b. 18-24 (77.4%)
c. 35-44 (3.2%)
d. 45-54 (16.2%)
4. Did it meet your expectations?
5. Feedback.
6. Suggestions for improvement.
Survey results showed that of the 34 people that took the time to complete our survey.
15 people said that they use Reddit, and of that 15 less than half use it daily with 14%
being very infrequently. Along with the 15 that said they have never used Reddit we were
able to conclude that most of our surveyed group would fall into the novice category with
the site and between the ages of 18 and 24.

Secondary Research - Competitive Review Pinterest

Purpose- Find images and videos of your favorite hobbies, items, colors, etc.
Action- Login to Pinterest app or website, Select your favorites, Look through your feed and
create different boards of things you’d like to recreate, design, or just send to others or like them
for yourself
Outcome- To get as many customers and ideas for the different graduation cap designs.

Input Controls: Search bar, pagination,

Navigational: Scroll bar, tags, icons
Information: notifications

Input controls: search bar

Navigational: scroll bar, tags, icons
Informations: notifications

Input controls: search bar

Navigational: scroll bar, tags, icons
Informations: notifications

-Analyze how these insights can be applied or should be avoided for your project.
Avoid the same images popping up multiple times on one search, Personalize searches and
how to get into contact with people.

Secondary Research - Competitive Review Buzzfeed

Purpose- To find a community that is relevant to the user’s interest.

Action- Create an account, login, and search for a community of interest.
Outcome-To search Buzzfeed for community that has similar interests to the user.
Input controls: search bar
Navigation: nav bar, pagination, icons
Has a nav bar to choose different categories, like TV&Movies, shopping, quizzes, etc.
Has hamburger bar (collapsed nav-bar) on the side to choose a section of interest.
It is hard to find where to choose the different sections, the “hamburger bar” is not very
prominent.

Secondary Research - Competitive Review Quora

Basic components: it in a blog style and it uses more of the page to give information. It
has a style similar to facebook these there is a link on the side of the page and it shows you
what you can click on the left side. It is a very simple design and fewer images that Reddit.

Strength: The design is simple and uses a lot of white space. They also use font sizes well
Weakness: It does not use that many images on the first page. The icon is very small even
though the stands out. Also, the logo looks like a refresh icon.
Insights: We can try to use a simple icon like and white space that they have on their best.

Purpose- The purpose is to look at this competitor is to see how a more advanced and
positively reviews site is doing compared to our site. We want to look at the elements of Etsy
and see why people choose to go there rather than craigslist.
Action- For the action looking at quora’s home page and say what worked on their page and
what didn’t so that we can apply the changes to our page.
Outcome- For the outcomes, I learned that white space it good but it works better with a
balance of pictures and images being used on the screen.
Proto Persona
Gender: Male
Name: Fred Redding
Background: Middle Class
Profession: Visual and Performing Arts Student
Bio: Fred is a graduating Visual and Performing
Arts Major from San Diego, California. He is
customizing graduation caps for several people
around campus.
Goals: Fred is going to work full time in New York
for a design company, and will be using his
designed caps as portfolio pieces.
Motivations: Fred is using Reddit is a platform to
let people know about his plans for graduation caps
and people send request with pictures if possible.
Frustrations: Fred is frustrated because the site is
outdated. He would like the posts to be more
accessible to a specific audience
Sketches
Usability Testing
Since we were able to establish from our survey data that many of our responses were novices
with the site between the ages of 18 and 24 we decided to conduct usability testing with college
students that had little to no interaction with reddit. We chose tasks that tested various activities
a user may need to complete to use the site but a new user may have issues with.

Script and Tasks (Test 1)

*[Product] We are testing the usability of the redesigned Reddit site to see if it is user
friendly. Please try to complete the tasks given.

I’m going to be giving you things to do with the computer. I’d like you to go as far as you
would if you were working on your own. I will be right here, but I might not be able to
answer your questions. When you are done, say “I’m done” or “I would stop here.”

[TASK 1] Navigate to Reddit and create a new account or sign into your account and
join a subreddit you would be interested in.
[hand first task to participant] OK, let’s start. The first thing I’d like you to do is read this out
loud.

*[pre-task question] Do you have a Reddit account?

Great, now go ahead and do what it says giving us a verbal queue when you begin the task.

[After first task] Thank you.

*[post-task question] add your question(s) here

On a scale from 1-5, with 5 being difficult and 1 being easy, how easy was that task to
accomplish? Why did you assign that rating? Was there anything that caused you to
struggle or helped you? If so what was it?

Now let’s move on to the next one.

[TASK 2] Navigate to the home page of the Purdue SubReddit and upvote or
downvote the most popular post of all time.

*[pre-task question]
On a scale from 1-5, with 5 being difficult and 1 being easy, how easy was that task to
accomplish? Why did you assign that rating? Was there anything that caused you to
struggle or helped you? If so what was it?

Great, now go ahead and do what it says giving us a verbal queue when you begin the task..

[After 2nd task] Thank you.

*[post-task question]
On a scale from 1-5, with 5 being difficult and 1 being easy, how easy was that task to
accomplish? Why did you assign that rating?

Now let’s move on to the next one.

[During tasks, if necessary] Please remember to think out loud, if necessary.

[TASK 3] Navigate to the home page of the Purdue SubReddit and comment on a
rising post.

*[pre-task question]

Great, now go ahead and do what it says giving us a verbal queue when you begin the task..

[After 3nd task] Thank you.

*[post-task question]
On a scale from 1-5, with 5 being difficult and 1 being easy, how easy was that task to
accomplish? Why did you assign that rating? Was there anything that caused you to
struggle or helped you? If so what was it?

[After all tasks] Thank you. Your feedback has been very helpful. Do you have any questions
for me about what you just worked with?

If you don’t mind, I’m just going to check with the team members who were watching to see
if they had any questions [get team members to give written questions to you]
Post-Screening Questionnaire

1. I think that I would like to use this forum often.

2. I found Reddit unnecessarily complex.
3. I don’t think Reddit is necessary to use.
4. I think that I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use Reddit.
5. I thought the tasks were easy to follow.
6. I thought there was too much inconsistency on the site.
7. I would imagine that most people would learn to use Reddit easily.
8. I feel that Reddit could be easily integrated into other platforms.
9. I felt very confident using the system.
10. I needed to learn a lot of things before I can use Reddit.

Of the tasks selected task two had the highest stated difficulty with an average of 3 out of 5 on
the difficulty scale with some of the comments directly mentioning being unable to find filter
options or in the case of one of the users completely forgetting about filter options.
Scripts and Tasks (Test 2)
(Interviewer records the screen used for the test to gather data)

Thank you for participating in this usability test of our Reddit site element redesign.

(Interviewer navigates to the Purdue subreddit)

Here is the current design of Reddit. When I say begin, please sort the page by “Controversial.”
You may begin.

(Participant completes the task)

Thank you.

(Interviewer navigates to prototype)

Here is our altered design of the site. When I say begin, please sort the page by “Controversial.”
You may begin.

(Participant completes the task)

That concludes our usability test of our proposed site element redesign. Thank you for your
cooperation.

(Screen capture timestamps are used to determine the amount of time taken to complete each
task.)
 User 1 User 2 User 3

Current Design Task

Completion Time (In
Seconds) 5 4 8

Redesign Task
Completion Time (In
Seconds) 2 2 3

Difference 3 2 5

Average Time (s)

Current Reddit : 5.666666667

Updated Reddit: 2.333333333

Difference: 3.333333333
Overall our data showed that the redesign changes we made had in impact on the easy
of locating and navigating between different filter options on the page.
Final Design
Existing Reddit Design:

Re-design:
Redesign Changes
For our redesign, we focused on the sorting tool found in the subreddit homepage, due to the
feedback we received from the first usability test regarding what users found to be difficult.
Whereas the original Reddit design used dropdown menus to sort posts, our redesign utilizes
the whole space present on the toolbar to provide a more direct and easy access to the sorting
tools.

Here is a screenshot of the original sorting element:

Here is a screenshot of the redesigned sorting element:

Where it took users two clicks to find the sorting method they desired in the original design, only
one click was required to find the desired method in the redesign, allowing users to perform the
task more quickly and with less cognitive effort.
Next Steps
Our next steps are as follows:

● Further usability testing to make sure results are consistent

● Try incorporating new filter options or designs to stand apart further

● Work on further expanding filter and status visibility

● Add pop up filters as new bar or to the right after main filter is chosen
Contributions
Milan Patterson
● Primary Research, Final Documentation, Proto-persona, Usability Testing

Shumi Marondera
● Secondary research, Design Doc, Presentation, Survey

Brad Williams
● Secondary Research, Power-Point Slides, Survey Distribution, Design Doc, Presentation

Connor Walls
● Survey distribution, Usability testing, Sketch creation, Mockup design, Mockup
implementation

Harrison Rogers
● Primary research, Usability testing in both phases, task creation, data evaluation and
analysis, Final Documentation, Presentation Slides, Survey modifications