Jif Test

Kelsey Reed

9/21/23

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201 1
 Introduction
Jif is an American peanut butter brand known across the United States for it’s
popularity and versatility. Its slogan “Choosey moms choose Jif” is a good
testament to this. Jif’s website is one of the resources its numerous customers
can use to do anything from looking at a variety of trustworthy recipes using
the brand to looking at the different peanut butters the brand offers if the
customer has specific criteria or preferences for their peanut butter. These
factors contribute to the purpose of the website, which is to sell a variety of
peanut butter by giving customers options and uses for the brands products.

I completed the test using the Jif website, a prepared list of questions about
each task, and the Steve Krug usability test script. As a marketing student at
the University of North Georgia, I conducted the experiment to get further
insight into user experience, specifically with the Jif brand, since I chose to
use the brand for several projects in my digital marketing course. Overall, the
session went well. There were brief points of confusion, which I will explain in
more detail shortly, however the participant liked the website’s ease of use
and competed both of her tasks in under two minutes.
Executive Summary
The usability test occurred in a more unformal setting at the participants’
home, but was done in a professional and realistic manner. The purpose of
the test was to examine how easy the website was to use for the user, and to
pinpoint the areas where the test taker had more difficulties and frustration.
The taker of the test was a 52-year-old woman who is a frequent peanut
butter buyer. She thinks peanut butter is budget friendly, convenient, and
versatile. Our session lasted about an hour as the test taker was very
thorough in exploring the website and took a lot of enjoyment out of the
website features. Her two tasks included going through the purchasing
process of buying sugar free peanut butter and then finding and saving a
peanut butter recipe for the site.

Once the test taker got a general idea of how the website worked, she was
able to navigate it quickly and easily without using search. As mentioned
before, she completed both tasks under two minutes, but she did have a few
frustrations including:

• The lack of prices when giving a list of places to buy peanut butter.
She didn’t like how she had to click on every single link to see
which company offered the best price for the peanut butter she
wanted. She also didn’t like how her preferred shopping platform,
Amazon, only offered a 12 pack of the sugar free peanut butter she
wanted. Overall, she stated that her biggest area of frustration was
having to go through numerous links to simply find the cheapest
price for the product, instead of it being provided on the Jif
website.

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201 2
 • Minor confusion over pictures vs links. She was confused on why
certain pictures were not bringing her to another part of the
website, but others were. She thought the website should be
clearer of what’s an image and what’s a link.
• When she clicked on the CTA button “Get a Taste”, she had made
11 clicks on the right arrow to find the product she wanted.
• She noted that when finding her preferred brownie recipe, the
brownie pictured in the header, which was her first choice, wasn’t
actually a recipe provided by the company. She thought that the
recipe header should only include recipes that the website could
provide, and not stock or unrelated images.

This report contains the test taker’s feedback, which includes her likes and
dislikes as well as her overall frustrations and answers to questions about her
ease of use and satisfaction. This report also includes the test’s methodology,
results, recommendations, and little details about the test.

Methodology
Sessions
I asked the test taker days in advance if she would be willing to participate in
this test due to her frequent purchases of peanut butter and knowledge about
online shopping and technology. Her first task was to go through the process
of buying sugar free peanut butter through the website. It took her one
minute and 35 seconds to do this. Her second task was to find a brownie
recipe for an upcoming event using the website. This task took her one
minute and 15 seconds.

After each task, I asked her questions related to her ease of use on the
website and overall satisfaction. Post-task scenario questions included (see
Attachment B):
• The tester’s likes and dislikes about the website
• Their ability to easily navigate the website.
• Accurateness of locating where the information and products she
wanted might be.

After she completed these tasks, I asked several scaled questions, meaning
she was asked to rank her experience on a scale of 1 -5, with 1 being agree
and 5 being difficult for measures including:
• Ease of use
• Functionality
• Clarity
• Satisfaction
• Site organization

In addition, I asked the participant the following overall website questions:

• What the participant liked most.
• What the participant liked least.
• Most difficult aspects
• Recommendations

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201 3
 See Attachment C for the subjective and overall questionnaires.

Participants

My one participant was a 52-year-old mother from a Georgia suburb. The

participant quickly moved through her tasks on the 21st of September 2023.
She has used peanut butter frequently in the past for her children but has
since then found it very useful in dog treats and delivering medication to
dogs. Professionally, my tester is a Nuclear Medicine Technologist and has
found Jif peanut butter very convenient for quick meals when she has longer
workdays and can’t spend a lot of time preparing meals.

Role
Federal State / Public Federal Medical Research * Other
Staff/Agency Health Department Grantee Institution Institution Organization

- - - 1 - -

Evaluation Tasks/Scenarios
I created the task scenarios using my own observations, difficulties, and
common processes I thought most consumers would have/ do. There were
two tasks the tester had to complete. Which were to:
• Find a zero-sugar peanut butter and then proceed to go through the
process of purchasing it. Do this without using search.
• Find and save a brownie recipe on the Jif website. Do this without using
search.

Results
Task Completion Success Rate
I recorded the participant’s ability to complete the tasks without prompting by
clearly stating the task and then letting the participant voice her thoughts
aloud as she worked through the process of completing the task. I allowed
her to work out the processes on her own and offered no additional
information that would jeopardize the intent of the exam. My participant
completed each task successfully with no exceptional difficulty under two
minutes.

Task Completion Rates

Participant Task 1 Task 2

1 √ √

Success 1 1

Completion
100% 100%
Rates

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201 4
 Task Ratings
After successfully completing each task, the participant was asked to rate her
ease in completing the task or difficulty on a scale of 1 to 5:
• It was easy to navigate to what she wanted from the landing page.
• The process of obtaining the information she wanted was
satisfactory.
• Frustration in getting the needed products and or information.

The 1 to 5 rating scale was done to accurately identify the ease of which the
participate was able to navigate the website, with 1 being the highest amount
of difficulty and 5 being representative of complete ease. Numbers between 1
and 5 and decimal points were used to show more specific representations of
the participants’ experience on the website.

Ease in Finding Information

Though my participant completed her tasks effectively, she did rate every
question relating to ease of use a 3 – 4.5. Her second task, which was to find
and save a brownie website, ranked a 4.5. Her first task, which was to go
through the process of buying sugar free peanut butter, she rated a 3.5.

Navigation of product on Site

She rated the second task of finding and saving a brownie recipe a 4.5 since
she was able to complete the process quickly, but was frustrated that the
recipe she wanted, which were the brownies in the header, was not actually a
brownie recipe the website provided. Other than that she really enjoyed the
ease of finding the recipe she wanted.

She rated the first task, which was to “purchase” a sugar free peanut butter,
3.5 / 5 since she was able to eventually locate and “purchase” the peanut
butter, but she had to go through multiple links to compare prices to see her
best option. She thought this was inconvenient since the prices should
already be posted on the website. Additionally, in order to find the sugar free
peanut butter, she had to do 11 clicks of the right arrow to scroll after hitting
the call-to-action button.

Satisfaction in obtaining Information.

She rated the second task of finding and saving a brownie recipe a 4, since
she didn’t have to go to any external sites to actually find what she wanted.
She rated the first task of “buying” the sugar free peanut butter a 3 since
sheet found it frustrating to have to be sent to each service that sells the
peanut butter in order to actually see the price shed be paying.

Tasks– Mean Task Ratings

Ease – Frustration
Satisfaction
Task Navigating during Overall
of Site
Info Process
1 – Finding and
“purchasing” sugar free 3.5 (70%) 3.0 (60%) 3.7 (74%) 3.4
peanut butter
2 – Finding and saving
4.5 (90%) 4.0 (80%) 4.5 (40%) 4.3
a brownie recipe
*Percent Agree (%) = Agree & Strongly Agree Responses combined

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201 5
 Time on Task
The participant’s time on each test was recorded to best reflect their ease of
use.

Task 1 took the participant 1 minute and 35 seconds to complete. This was
because she had a little bit of a struggle locating where the product was and
then finding a price, she was willing to pay for it. Task 2 took the participant 1
minute and 15 seconds to complete, since she found it with relative ease but
looked through each recipe to find the one she would want most.

Time on Task
P1
95
Task 1
seconds
75
Task 2
seconds

Overall Metrics
Overall Ratings
After task session completion, participants rated the site for overall measures.
These measures include:
• Ease of use
• Satisfaction of use
• Difficulty of navigating the site
• Clarity of site
• Getting information quickly
• Homepage’s content facilities exploration
• Site features were functional
• Site organization

The participants thought the website was generally easy to use. She was
satisfied with her experience, but still experienced some frustration in the
buying process. She found that the simplicity of the website made it really
easy to navigate and get information fairly quickly. She also thought the
website was conveniently organized, but she had some recommendations for
some things that can be added.

see table below.

Post-Task Overall Questionnaire

Strongly Strongly Mean Percent

Disagree Neutral Agree
Disagree Agree Rating Agree

Thought Website
1 1 100%
was easy to use
Satisfied of
1 1 100%
website
Found it difficult to
navigate the 1 1 0%
website

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201 6
 Strongly Strongly Mean Percent
Disagree Neutral Agree
Disagree Agree Rating Agree
The site was clear
and not overly 1 1 100%
complicated
Can get
1 1 0%
information quickly
Homepage’s
content makes me
1 1 100%
want to explore
site
Features in the site
1 1 100%
were functional
Website is well
1 1 100%
organized
*Percent Agree (%) = Agree & Strongly Agree Responses combined

Likes, Dislikes, Participant Recommendations

Post completion of the tasks, the participate provided feedback for what she
liked, disliked, and would change.

Liked Most
The following comments capture what the participant liked most:
The participant really enjoyed all the recipes the site had to offer. She also
liked the organization of the recipes into categories so she could easily find
exactly what she wanted. When she got the chance to explore the site more
after completing the task, she liked that the site included an “about us” tab
for her to look at their history.

Liked Least
The following comments capture what the participant liked the least:
The participant did not like having to click on every company link that offered
the product to see the price. She thought it was frustrating that to find her
best price she had to keep getting sent to other websites to find the best
price for the product. She also didn’t like that the brownie pictured in the
header wasn’t actually a brownie website listed on the website. Though she
really enjoyed looking through the recipes, she wished they’d have more
diversity, especially a second for dog treats recipes as she usually uses the
product for her dogs.

Recommendations for Improvement

The participant mentioned that it would be much easier to quickly buy the
product if they listed the prices on the site for each company that sold the
product. She said that if she had to keep going to different links to find the
cheapest price, she’d rather just use a different brand. Additionally, she
stated that she would really enjoy a category in the recipe section for dogs.
She primarily uses peanut butter for dog treats and would use the website
more often if it had this category.

Recommendations
The recommendations section provides recommended changes and
justifications driven by the participant success rate, behaviors, and

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201 7
 comments. Each recommendation includes a severity rating. The following
recommendations will improve the overall ease of use and address the areas
where participants experienced problems or found the interface/information
architecture unclear.

For example:
Buy sugar free peanut butter (Task 1)
Task 1 required the participant to find and then buy sugar free peanut butter

Change Justification Severity

• Add prices beside each
company that sells the
product.
Participant expressed frustration when having to High
click on every link ad then be brought to a
different website just to compare prices. She
thought it was a lot of unnecessary actions for
simply comparing prices. She stated that in the
future she would rather just shop from another
brand rather than go through the frustration of
going through every link to find the best price.

Find and save a brownie recipe (Task 2)

Task 2 required the participant to find and save a brownie recipe for an upcoming event
Change Justification Severity

• Delete pictures of food from
headers that do not actually
belong to a recipe on the
site.
• Add a dog treat section
The participant’s top brownie choice was the Low
brownie pictured in the heading. However, she
was disappointed when she found out that that
brownie did not have a corresponding recipe on
the website.
Since the participant primarily uses the brand for
dog treats, she recommended adding a dog
category to the recipes tab. She said she would
visit the website more frequently if the category
existed.

Conclusion
Implementing the recommendations and continuing to work with users (i.e.,
real lay persons) will ensure a continued user-centered website.

Overall, the participant found lots of products she didn’t know the brand
offered and lots of recipes that interested her. She did not like having to be
sent to another website when finding the best prices, but overall she was very
satisfied with the website’s ease of use and was able to navigate it pretty
quickly once she got the hang of it. Using her feedback and observations, we
can conclude simplicity and variety to be a big factor in a website’s successes
and ease of use to customers. The participant used many 3 – 4.5s on her
scaled question to compliment the website’s ease of use well.

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201 8