UX Analysis of LaurenBateman.com

Usability Test for LaurenBateman.com – Madison Kovac
Test Preparation
In order to prepare to conduct a usability test for LaurenBateman.com, I had to walk through
each task and record my observations. My initial observations on the website were that the
consistent color schemes of blue were eye-pleasing and clean. After scrolling on the home page,
I noticed that there was a lot of text and information presented to the user. This page was very
long and required a lot of scrolling to get to the bottom of the page. The lack of a return to top
button was frustrating because I had to scroll all the way back up if I wanted to visit another page
on the site. The first task wants the user to find the free lessons on the site and how many free
lessons are offered. On the home page, I clicked on the big blue button, under Lauren’s
introduction video, because it said, “Get My Free Training.” This brought me to a page that
wanted my name and email, in order to send me “the answers to the top ten questions students
ask about learning to play guitar.” I quickly clicked the go back button at the top of my screen. I
scrolled and clicked on the blue box that read, “Free Guitar Crash Course.” This opened a page
that explained what I would get in a free course and how to sign up for it. The free course
included how to hold, tune, and strum a guitar. It also included how to hold a pick, simple finger
exercises, chord charts from real songs, and a PDF workbook. I went back to the homepage and
clicked on the “songs” drop down button and scrolled through an extensive list of songs and their
chord charts. After clicking on a few, it seemed like all of the songs listed on this page were free
to learn. Task 2 wants the user to be able to locate what Lauren’s 7 Level Beginner Guitar
Lesson is and what each level means. I was able to locate the information by hovering on the
“Lessons” tab and clicking on the “Free Guitar Crash Course” subtab. After scrolling through the
page, I learned that Lauren invented the 7-level course system. I couldn’t find what each level
was specifically. I scrolled through the entire page and couldn’t find this information. I decided
that the information was not provided on the site and moved to next task. On task 3, I had to find
the price of the 7-levels course and how long a user would have access to it. I went to “Products”
tab and clicked on the “Beginner Guitar Course.” I scrolled on this page a bit and clicked on the
“Enroll Today (US Resident)” button. I was taken to a different page where I would put in my
information to buy this course. It showed in bold font that it was $147 dollars. I read the
description and found that I would have lifetime access to the lessons, but a year access to the

Facebook group, emails, and Zoom calls with Lauren. With that completed, I moved on to Task
4. This task required me to locate the song, Fast Car, by Tracy Chapman and determine if it was
a beginner’s song. I went to the “Song” tab, on the homepage, and clicked “Beginner Guitar
Songs” subtab. I carefully scrolled through all the sections to find the song but didn’t have any
luck. I decided to check the “Intermediate Guitar Song” subtab from the “Songs” tab. I was
happy that my song was in the first section and noticed that it was in alphabetical order. I was
frustrated with the lack of search bar for the songs. This entire test took me about 25 minutes to
complete, with the most time spent searching for the specific of each 7 levels. After conducting
this test on myself, I felt prepared to conduct it on the two testers.
Choosing Participants
Tester Comparison Summary Chart
Mandy Howe Jaxson Romer
Gender Female Male
Age 22 19
Hours browsing / week 50-60 20
Browsing habits
Uses her phone to browse most of her time;
She estimated that she uses social media for
60% of her browsing time, 30% for shopping,
and 10% general browsing.
Browses not very frequently; Doesn’t online
shop; social media estimated to 80% of his
time; only estimated to 20% of his time
Other observations
Fourth year student; Organization
Communication and Public Relations major
Plays video games; second year student;
Animal Science major
Tester 1 Details:
The first tester was Mandy Howe. She was a reasonable person to do this test because she
browses the internet frequently and understands when a website is easy to use and has a good
idea of what makes a website good. She uses the computer for her jobs and internships. Mandy
also gives the perspective of a fourth-year student at Northwest Missouri State University.
Mandy is a 22-year-old female from Missouri. She is not interested in the guitar lesson at the
moment, but she was a piano player for 3 years in elementary school. However, she is very
knowledgeable about the internet.

Environment for Tester 1
• Location of test: The test was conducted in her bedroom, with the door shut. This was to
ensure that the room would be free of distractions. The desktop was situated on her desk,
and she was sitting in her office chair. This location was chosen because it allowed her to
feel comfortable and able to say good feedback.
• Physical environment: The lighting in the test site was standard bedroom overhead
lighting. The curtains were shut, in order to not have the natural light distract or make it
hard to see the computer screen. We were the only people in the room. To make sure
there was not any distractions, phones were not in the room and the tv was turned off.
• Technical environment: The computer was a desktop with a cable internet connection.
The browser that was used was Google Chrome. There weren’t any browser add-ons.
This test was completed on the laptop that was issued by Northwest Missouri State
University.
Tester 2 Details: The second tester was Jaxson Romer. He was a reasonable person to take this
test because he isn’t as experienced with general browsing on the internet as tester 1. This will
provide a different perspective of the usability of the site with someone who isn’t as skilled with
the internet. He also provides insight from a second year Northwest student. Jaxson is a 19-year-
old male from Missouri. He grew up in the country, which meant he didn’t have reliable internet
access causing him to not have proficient internet skills, until he got to high school. He has a
slight interest in learning how to play his favorite songs on the guitar but wouldn’t want to take
traditional paid lessons.
Environment for Tester 2
• Location of test: The test was conducted in Mandy’s bedroom, with the door shut. This
was to ensure that the room would be free of distractions. The desktop was situated on
the desk, and he was sitting in an office chair. This location was chosen because it
allowed him to feel comfortable and able to say good feedback. I kept the testing location
the same because tester 1 did so well and I wanted the second test to have the same
environment.

• Physical environment: The lighting in the test site was standard bedroom overhead
lighting. The curtains were shut, in order to not have the natural light distract or make it
hard to see the computer screen. We were the only people in the room. To make sure
there was not any distractions, phones were not in the room and the tv was turned off.
The only difference was that one of my roommates came into the room, which was a bit
of a distraction, but she left quickly before causing any problems.
• Technical environment: The computer was a desktop with a cable internet connection.
The browser that was used was Google Chrome. There weren’t any browser add-ons.
This test was completed on the laptop that was issued by Northwest Missouri State
University.
Test Results
Initial Site Thoughts
Tester 1: She thought that the main goal when she first logged on the site was to
sell guitar lessons. She pointed out the tabs and liked the way they were organized and
felt that it made the site look professional. As she scrolled, she talked about liking that the
page linked to her YouTube channel. She noted the boxes that showed how to purchase
the lesson and scrolled through more information for about 30 seconds. She commented
about the blue and white color scheme and liked that it looked symmetrical.
Tester 2: He immediately liked seeing her video and her mission. He scrolled
down for a few seconds. He made the comment, “there’s nothing about lessons until you scroll,
which is confusing.” He expressed that he liked the fact that there was a lot of information and
text about Lauren on the homepage. He liked the colors and felt that they flowed together well
and was easy on his eyes.
Similarities and Differences: The main similarities in the testers’ initial thought
were the enjoyment of the color scheme and the main goal being the first thing on the site. They
took different amounts of time to scroll through the website. Tester 1 spoke about the
information that was presented on the screen and liked the linkage to her YouTube. Tester 2
didn’t like that he had to scroll to find out about the lessons. Tester 2 also liked the fact that there

was a lot of information and text on the page, while tester 1 focused more on the presentation of
the site and not the information on the screen.
Task 1: You want to understand the complete array of free lesson options at
LaurenBateman.com. For this task, look for information that explains what type of lessons free
and how many free lessons are offered.
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 5 3.5 4.25
Success Rate 100% 100% 100%
Tester 1 Completion Process
This task took Mandy around 5 minutes to complete. The first place she moves her mouse
to is the “Lessons” tab. She looks at the drop-down options for a few seconds, and even
comments that there are three lesson section. She eventually just clicks the actual
“Lessons” button. She scrolled down and talked about the section that showed what will
be covered in the free course. She spoke that these could be the different types of free
lessons. She liked that Lauren provided a goal for the free course and noticed the link to
“beginner guitar songs,” in the goal section. She went back to the top of the page to
access the tab bar. She hovered on the “Lesson” tab and clicked on the “More Guitar
Lesson” subsection. She scrolled down to find a section that split all of the free lessons
into different categories. She expressed that this is the types of lessons that were offered
for free and estimated there were about 30 lessons. She gave this task a satisfaction score
of 5 because it was easy to navigate and find the information.
This task took Jaxson about 10 minutes to complete because he got a bit frazzled at the
beginning of it. He first when to the "Lessons” and clicked on the “Free Guitar Crash
Course. He scrolled through the page and expressed frustration that he didn’t know where
to go on the site. He saw the “Opt In Now” button, but did not want to press it. He
decided to click on the back button and go to the home page. He scrolled down and
clicked on the box on the home page that said, “Free Guitar Crash Course.” It took him to
the same spot. He went back to the “Lessons” tab and clicked on the “More Guitar

Lessons.” He scrolled and found the section that was split into sections of categories of
free lessons. He looked around for a bit and expressed that he believes there around 8-10
lesson categories that are free on the site. He gave a satisfaction score of 3.5 because he
felt that it wasn’t and easy task, but it wasn’t a hard task either.
Biggest Problems
The biggest problem for this task was that the “Free Guitar Crash Course” tab did not
provide that much information about the type of lessons that are offered. Both of the
testers actually had to go to the “More Guitar Lessons” tab, in order to find the actual
lesson categories that were free. This is a problem because it caused the testers to get
confused. They wanted to find the information on the “Free Guitar Crash Course” tab but
had to go to another tab for that information. This is a problem for the site visitors
because it can cause the visitors to get frustrated and leave the site altogether, which is
bad for the site.
This shows how much information is on the “Free Guitar Crash Course”
This is small amount of information on free lessons on the “More Guitar Lesson” tab.

Alignment to Heuristic: Number 5: Error Prevention
This refers to the design that either eliminates error-prone conditions or check for them
and have a conformation message about an action. This aligns with the error of not
putting the correct, or the expected information on the “Free Guitar Crash Course.” Most
the free lessons, that are also hyperlinked to another part of the site, is on the “More
Guitar Lessons” page. This is a slip and can cause the visitor to get frustrated and leave
the site.
Task 2: You’ve decided that you may eventually want more serious guitar lessons from Lauren
than what is available for free. For this task, learn what Lauren’s 7 Level Beginner Guitar
Lesson is, specifically, what are the 7 levels?
Average Satisfaction 3 3 3
This task took Mandy around 10-12 minutes to almost complete, she ended up just saying
she couldn’t find it and we moved on to the next task. Back on the home page, Mandy
clicks on the “Products” tab. It brought her to the “7 Level Beginner Guitar System.” She
scrolled down and noted what was included in the 7 levels program. She started to get
confused and said, “there’s a lot of options, I am so confused.” She went back up the
“Products” tab and clicked on the subsection “Beginner Guitar Lessons.” She was back
on the same page. She found that Lauren created the system. She looked at the “What’s
Included Section,” and concluded that it could possibly be the levels. She expressed that
she really can’t find what each level is, specifically. She did not complete the task. She
rated the satisfaction of this task because she wasn’t for sure if it was her fault if she
couldn’t find what the levels were, or if the website messed up.

This task took Jaxson around 8-10 minutes to almost complete. He wanted to move on
after not being able to find what each level was, specifically. He first hovered over the
“Products” tab. He looked at the options, commenting on the “T-shirts” subsection. He
then decided to scroll down on the homepage and click on the “Buy Lauren’s Course”
block. He clicked on the “Enroll Today (US Resident)” button. He noticed the “What’s
Included” section and began to read through it. He noticed that the 7 levels course
included 50+ videos on various topics. He counted the topics and there were only 6
different topics and he concluded that it couldn’t be what the levels specifically were and
decided to go back to the homepage. He started to scroll on the homepage and exclaimed,
“It goes on forever, but I don’t mind it.” He said that he found what the 7 levels course
included, but he can’t find where the specifics of the levels were at on the site. He didn’t
complete the task and wanted to move to the next task. He rated his satisfaction a 3
because he “found it kind of, so I’ll give it a neutral score.”
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem that both of the testers had with this task was the fact that there
wasn’t a clear layout of what each of the seven levels were in the paid beginner’s course.
This is a major problem for the website because it can deter a visitor into actually buying
the course. Many people want to know exactly the levels they will be completing before
the pay for it.
This is where the testers wanted to find out what each level consisted of, but only found
out this information.

Alignment to Heuristic: #4: Consistency and Standards
This heuristic means that users will have expectation from other sites and will want the
site they are on to perform in the same way. This aligns with the problem because most
website will layout exactly what each level would include, and it would be on the screen
where you make your purchase. Since this website didn’t layout what each level
included, instead it gave a brief overview of what would be covered, it caused the testers
to become confused. They felt like they could slightly find what they were looking for
but felt not satisfied with the information they found on the site. The testers were longing
for the consistency of other websites.
Task 3: Determine how much the 7 Level Beginner Guitar Lesson costs and how long you will
have access to course materials.
Average Satisfaction 5 4 4.5
This task took Mandy less than 5 minutes to complete. She started on the homepage and
hovered on the “Products” tab and clicked on the “Lauren’s Guitar Course Library”
subtab. She had a lot of options presented on the screen. She was a bit confused with the
pricing, since the first option said it was only $65. She quickly realized it was actually the
same course, that was just a 3-month payment plan. She clicked on the “7 Level Guitar
System” box and immediately saw that the price was 147 dollars. After scrolling down a
bit, she noticed the text said, “Lifetime access to:” and it listed everything that was
included in that section. She then concluded that the user has a year access to the
Facebook group, emails, and Zoom calls. She rated her satisfaction a 5 and stated, “that
was easy.” She did find it quickly, but got confused when multiple options were in
This task took Jaxson around 8-10 minutes to complete. He hovered over the “Products”
tab and clicked on the “Beginner’s Guitar Course.” He scrolled down until he saw the
“Enroll today (US Resident)” button and clicked on it. He immediately noticed that it was

147 dollars. He begins to read the course descriptions for a bit. He stated that the access
would be the “30-day action plan.” He concluded that the 147 dollars would get you a
“30-day action plan and then you would have to pay for more individual lessons.” He
didn’t complete the task, but he though he completed it and we proceeded to move to the
next task. He rated the satisfaction of the task a 4 because he thought it was easy to sign
up, but it doesn’t give the specific information I need to find.” He felt overwhelmed with
the amount of text that was listed in the course description.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem for both of the testers was the confusion involved with too many
choices, or text was too wordy. They both were a bit confused when presented with all
the choices and had to intensely read the description to figure out what exactly was
included and how long the access was in the course. This is a problem for the site because
it can have visitors become overwhelmed with options and information that they panic
and leave the site.
This is where the three different options made Tester 1 confused.

This is where Tester 2 got confused with the wording
Alignment to Heuristic: #8: Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
This heuristic means that a website shouldn’t contain information that isn’t relevant or is
rarely needed. This aligns with the test observations because the number of options were
competing with each other and caused tester 1 to become overwhelmed for a bit. This
also pertains to the wordiness of the course description and everything it included, it
started to confuse tester 2 and make him believe false information.

Task 4: You’re a fan of Tracy Chapman’s song, “Fast Car”. For this task, determine whether or
not Lauren teaches this song, and if so, is it a song for beginners?
Average Satisfaction 4 5 4.5
This task took Mandy about 10 minutes to complete. She started on the homepage and
hovered over the “Songs” tab. She then clicked on the “Beginner Guitar Songs” subtab.
She starts to scroll down the page. She comments that she sees another Tracy Chapman
song, so it will probably be on this site. She begins to scroll through the page. She
observed that the songs were sorted by chords, which she found cool. She decides that
this song might be on the “Intermediate Guitar Songs” tab and goes back up to the
“Songs” tab, in order to click on it. She begins to scroll down on the page. She scans
through the first section, “Songs with Intermediate Fingerpicking Application,” and finds
Tracy Chapman’s song, Fast Car. She is pleased with her ability to locate the song. She
rated her satisfaction a 5 because it was pretty easy to find what she was looking for and
she was happy with the results.
This task took Jaxson around 8 minutes to complete. He started on the homepage and
hovered over the “Songs” tab. He clicks on “Beginner Guitar Songs” subtab in the drop-
down box. He began to scroll through the page. He makes a comment about how he likes
that she has an introduction about the songs and the page at the top of page. He observed
that the songs were listed in alphabetical order, which he found helpful. After scanning
through all the songs on the page, he decided to go back up to the “Songs” tab and click
on the “Intermediate Guitar Songs” subtab. He scrolled through and found the song on
the first section and was excited that it was so easy to find. He rated his satisfaction rating
to this task a 5 because he liked the way the “Songs” tab was set up and liked that the list
was in alphabetical order.

Biggest Problem
The biggest problem for both the testers was that they had to scroll through the entire
page, in order to find their song. They didn’t have a search bar on either “Beginner Guitar
Songs” or “Intermediate Guitar Songs” pages. Since they couldn’t find their song on the
“Beginner Guitar Songs” page, they had to go to the “Intermediate Guitar Songs” page
and scroll through that entire page, as well. It was a lengthy process that can cause the
visitors to become discouraged that their song isn’t on the site. This can cause the visitor
to leave and find another site that offers that song.
This is to show that there isn’t a search bar, and you have to scroll through all the
sections to hopefully find your song.
Alignment to Heuristic: #7: Flexibility and efficiency of use
This heuristic means that the interface has options to speed up processes and allow user
to adapt frequent actions. This aligns with the problem because the problem was the
efficiency of scrolling through the different tabs and hoping the song that is being
searched for is on one of the pages. A search bar that searches both pages would allow
the user to speed up their search.
Final Thoughts
Tester 1: She thought the site was relatively easy to navigate through, but she did have
some issues with the site. She was very frustrated with task 2 and wasn’t for sure if it was her
fault or the site’s fault. Either way, she said it lowered her satisfaction with the website. After

working through the site, she felt that her expectations from her initial thoughts were met and
was surprised with the amount of information on the site.
Tester 2: He was impressed with the look throughout the website. He felt as though it
was setup reasonably and found navigating it to be easy. He felt that “almost anyone could find
what they need on this site.” His main issue with the site was the name. He felt that the site
would get a lot more people to go to it if it was named something related to guitars. Other than
that, he was satisfied with the website. He said that he was surprised with the amount of content
Lauren offered that was free, he expected most of it to be paid content.
Similarities and Differences: Both of the tester felt that the site was easy, to an extent,
to navigate. They were both also surprised with the amount of information and content on the
site. The main difference was between their issues with the site. Initially, Mandy (tester 1) was
more focused on the presentation of the site, but at the end she was more concerned with the
navigation to find information on the site. Jaxson (tester 2) on the other hand was more focused
on the information, at first, but his main issue with the site was the name.
Recommendation to improve user experience
Single Problem Being Fixed
One of the big problems that I believe should be fix is related to Task 2. In Task 2, both
of my testers were unable to find the specifics of each of the 7 levels. This problem left both of
my testers feeling as if they were inadequate at being able to find the description of the level, but
in reality, it is not on the website. I think this problem needs to be solved because it can deter
potential buyers from joining the 7-level course. On one of the pages, it provides that a student
must complete all the material in each level, in order to move on to the next level. Since it
provides that information, I believe that users will want to know what each level consists of
because if they are paying for lessons and don’t know if they are able to pass a certain level, that
could cause them to not buy the lessons out of fear of the unknown.
Problem Improvement
I decided to fix this problem on the actual “Beginner Guitar Course” page from the “Products”
tab, instead of fixing it on the description next to the checkout information box. This
improvement can be implemented there, as well, but I wanted this information to be with the
other similar and related information, which was on the actual page. I wanted the description of

what each level requires the user to complete. This would be very cluttered if it was bulleted by
onto the page. I decided to take out the bulleted description of what is included in the 7 courses
(not specific to each level, just all of what is included.) Here is the before picture.
This needed to be removed because it talks about this information at the top of the page and
doesn’t give the user what each level consists of and just looks cluttered and repetitive. I wanted
the requirements of each level to be laid out for the user but concluded that some users might not
particularly care about the levels. I wanted a way that would show the levels requirements, but
also, not in the way of the user. That is why I chose to include expanded boxes of each levels’
requirements. This improvement not only looks aesthetically pleasing, but provides relevant
information that can be collapsed, so it is not cluttering the screen. I wasn’t able to actually put
anything in the expandable boxes because the requirements of each level was not available on
the site. I kept the blue theme, as well, because both of my testers expressed how they enjoyed
the blue colors and liked that it was consistent throughout the website. Here is the improvement
of the 7-level description on LaurenBateman.com.

Level 1 Requirements

UX Analysis of LaurenBateman.com

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