Overview

Ingleside’s (old age home) request was to conduct an in-depth user study to understand the frustration points with Cubigo, their resident application and present influential data-driven recommendations to Cubigo's team.

I conducted an accessibility audit and analyzed usability study data to present identified pain points and underlying issues within the Cubigo web interface to the stakeholders.

The research insights left a strong legacy and a comprehensive playbook for the organization to leverage and put user research and accessibility at the heart of the product development process. The product road map pivoted to a new strategy backed by research insights.

My Role & Project Details

Timeline: 6 weeks project
‍Team: Solo UX Researcher
Tools: Dueque, Axe, Word Doc/Excel, WCAG 2.1 Guidebook
My Role: UX Researcher + Accessibility Auditor  ‍

Product Space & Context

Ingleside is a senior living community located in D.C. that utilizes Cubigo's platform to digitize essential services for residents, staff, and families. Cubigo encompasses a range of functionalities including dining, maintenance,transportation, communication, and activity management.

User Problem

Ingleside residents experienced significant challenges navigating the Cubigo application, requiring frequent technical support and training to complete basic tasks.

Business Problem

Ingleside faced substantial resource constraints due to the complexities of the Cubigo resident application. To expand its market share, Cubigo sought to enhance user experience and reduce support burdens.

Goal of the Study

Identify, categorize, and prioritize usability enhancements within the Cubigo platform to optimize resident access.

Method

Conducted 60 min. comprehensive usability study with 8 participants at Ingleside community to assess residents’ interactions with the resident portal.
• Qualitative task-based analysis to evaluate behavioral and attitudinal metrics.
• Developed 9 representative tasks based on daily activities and defined success criteria.
• Utilized think-aloud protocols and post-task interviews to gather user feedback and to understand users thoughts on effectiveness, ease of usage of the designed application task flow.
• Employed the System Usability Scale (SUS) to measure overall usability.

Semi-automated WCAG 2.1 AA Conformance accessibility audit

Research Findings

• Users loved the modern and clean UI of the Cubigo and felt that the Cubigo application is an upgrade from the previous application they had to use.

“I think everybody is pleased with tran..using Cubigo vs the old portal.”

“The earlier portal was not as extensive and as neatly architecture as Cubigo. And so, this is very good. But we have to get used to it.”

• The users appreciated a few features like convenience, concise and precise information flow. However, the majority of users completed the task with difficulties. The critical issues that surfaced were:

Accessibility:

• 30+ critical accessibility issues discovered by conducting manual and semi-automated WCAG 2.1 Conformance level AA accessibility audit on prominently used pages by the residents, validated the user’s behavior and attitude as a technical problem.

• Residents with low vision and dexterity limitations encountered significant difficulties completing tasks due to accessibility barriers. Issues included insufficient font size, poor color contrast, lack of zoom functionality, keyboard traps, and limited compatibility with assistive technology. These factors hindered accurate and efficient task completion.

“The largest font is not large enough. You certainly have the space to increase to have much much larger fonts.”

“On many of the things.. well just look right here..<referring to the screen>that is extraordinarily.. those words, ‘cell phone, landline and apartment’ are extraordinarily faint. They are small. Although that’s as big as we can make them. But they should at least be bold. Like these are. There is no reason to have them so faint.”

Discoverability:
‍• The resident’s mental model to achieve certain tasks didn’t match with the cubigo’s architecture. It lacked intuitive interactions based on users’ psychology.

"I am looking to enlarge the font on Cubigo and after giving up..after going to help, and giving up completely, <researcher’s name> showed me to go to the profile. That never would have occurred to me. But that to me has always been in settings or preferences. And I don’t see anything like that in Cubigo”‍-anonymous  participant"

• Title III of the American Disability Act prohibits discrimination based on disability on places of public accommodation. It applies for all public facing websites used by companies that qualify as a place of public accommodation. Hence, as a place of lodging, Ingleside and Cubigo both have to be compliant to the Title III of ADA and make their applications accessible to residents.

Analysis

‍Task analysis
‍Since the highest number of actual users uses web browsers, we narrowed our scope of study to web browser usability testing. The participants mentioned below used a web browser.

The Average SUS Of The Web Application Was 61.65. With the data and statistical calculation, we are 70% confident that the perceived usability score would lie in the interval 54.37 to 68.93. The perceived and actual (n=8) SUS score of the web application lies below to the industry standard (68).

Recommendations

Design Changes
‍The final deliverable included the presentation with a compiled list of findings from accessibility audit and usability tests. This helped developers to troubleshoot the issues directly. I worked alongside the Cubigo team to assist them with the deliverables and refine product roadmaps.  

• With specific brand color (Blue shade), special attention can be taken to match the accessibility guideline, like using a heavy-weight font, with a larger font size.
‍• Multiple close variations of the color can be avoided by creating brand design guidelines and implementing them across pages.

Tech Changes
‍• ARIA does not make your application accessible. It makes it understandable. Alternative text describes the appearance of the function of an image on a page and is read aloud by screen readers used by visually impaired users
• Add discernible texts, labels, title attribution, language attribution to the elements that are visible to the screen readers.
• ARIA - label attributes need to be added to the element.
• Ensure text scaling & zooming.
• Elements should have focusable content to be easily accessible by different modes like keyboard

Impact

I presented the findings and insight from the usability test and accessibility audit to the C-level stakeholders of Cubigo and IngleSide Engaged Living Resident.

Strategic Impact
‍This work has left a strong legacy, and a comprehensive playbook for the org to leverage.
Put user research and accessibility at the heart of the product development process.
Product strategy pivot backed by research insights.

Product Impact
‍Through theiterative design process and user collaboration, I was able to quickly relay feedback from research and incorporate it to the set of recommendations - Agile!

Stakeholder’s Collaboration Impact
‍UXR became a strategic ally for the product team.
UXR promoted collaboration between research and other teams like Engineering, Customer Service, and Data Science.

Reflections & Learnings

• Equitable and inclusive research will lead to an accessible technology.

• Experimentation and learning lead to greater personal growth, success and confidence.

• Observe and make personal connections with the users to make them comfortable and open up during the new process.

• Try out technology and understand how it works to empathize and troubleshoot the problems users are facing.