The Challenge
Endeavor Foundation, is one of the leading providers of disability services in Australia. Their website hosts multiple supports and services for people with disabilities and their caretakers.
While planning a major website upgrade, they decided to test the homepage and gather user feedback on its usability.
Their main focus was on the homepage and website navigation.
Gayatri Kelkar, User Experience Advisor at Endeavor Foundation, mentioned that they were looking to understand if it aligns with users’ expectations, how easy it is for the users to find information, and then see what changes need to be done for better UX.
We wanted to collect as many insights as we could before getting into the upgrade work.
The Solution
One crucial detail shaped the entire research process: the website’s primary audience is divided into two distinct groups — individuals with disabilities and their caretakers. The challenge was to create a design that worked seamlessly for both.
We wanted to see how well the expectations from these two categories match. Because there were cases when, for example, the caretakers thought that the navigation menu is too busy, but then the disability cohort found it easy to use.
We were trying to find that sweet spot where the website would be easy to use for both these groups.
To achieve this, they designed task-based usability tests. Participants completed specific actions on the website, such as finding a service or accessing support details, and then provided feedback.
We were trying to get into users' minds, see through their lenses how they interact with the website, and uncover areas for improvement.
The team conducted 40 unmoderated usability tests — 20 for each audience segment. Gayatri highlights that all the participants were recruited from the UXtweak User Panel.
The Outcomes
The website testing process provided several valuable insights, helping shape the direction of Endeavor Foundation’s upgrade. One of the most striking findings was how differently the two target audiences — people with disabilities and their carers — viewed the website:
For the Carer audience, nearly 86% of participants reported an efficient information discovery process, confirming that the current content organization is effective.
However, for the People with Disabilities audience, this number was approximately 50%, indicating that while users appreciated the layout and the unified design, they found it challenging to locate information.
This insight highlighted the need for a more streamlined and accessible design, prompting us to create simpler pages with concise, user-friendly content.
Another big insight was that while carers wanted sections specifically tailored to their needs, the people with disability cohort preferred a more unified design. Gayatri explains:
Carers wanted it specifically designed for two different audience groups. Something very much tailored for carers versus tailored towards the cohort of people with disability.
But when we got the responses from the people with disabilities, they found the website to be perfect, and they didn't want to make that differentiation.
Another standout finding related to the navigation menu.
Users found it overwhelming, even though it contained all the necessary information.
This has prompted the team to reorganize the menu to provide the same depth of information but in a clearer, less intimidating format. The research also revealed frustrations with auto-triggered pop-up forms.
Both audiences found auto-triggered pop-ups to be distracting and intrusive, with nearly 90% of the users from each group agreeing that these pop-ups should be removed.
While these pop-ups have contributed to an increase in newsletter subscriptions, we now need to rethink their implementation to balance user experience with subscription goals.
While the form was designed to improve accessibility, feedback showed users preferred having control over when to open it themselves. This insight led the team to rethink the design of the newsletter form.
Why UXtweak? 🐝
Gayatri noted initial uncertainty about finding enough test participants to represent the cohort of people with disabilities. However, she shared that the UXtweak support team successfully managed to recruit this niche audience without significant challenges.
The quality of feedback was excellent, and it was nice to see how well the recruiting process worked.
She also appreciated the ability to pre-purchase participants for the tests:
And another good thing that I liked about UXtweak was the ability to pre-purchase the participants, so then we don't have to every time request for the new participants, the pre-purchased participants would always be available.
