Reddit Usability Test (Ongoing project)
A comprehensive usability test with the Reddit mobile app.
Challenge
We know that Reddit is one of the largest and most active social media platforms, where users connect with communities that share their interests and engage in discussions. However, my team and I realized that the Reddit mobile app has some unconventional features and behaviors that impact its usability in our everyday use.
Goal
To address these issues, we conducted a comprehensive usability test with the Reddit mobile app. Our research process included a heuristic evaluation, competitive analysis, and user interviews. We aimed to identify the app's usability issues and gather insights from users to improve their experience.
UX Research Process
1. Heurtistic evaluation
Referring to Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics, we
conducted a thorough evaluation of the Reddit mobile app. We
identified 27 usability issues, and utilize
Jakob Nielsen's severity rating scale to rate each one of
them. We finalized 5 criteiria that might impact the usability
the most, including
- Consisitency and standards
- Aesthetics
- Flexibility and efficiency of use
- User control and freedom
- Help and documentation
After collecting all the information, we found that many usability issues violated multiple heuristics. While some may appear to be low severity, certain features were unnecessarily complex, which could unintentionally overwhelm users over time.
2. Competitive analysis
By comparing Reddit to other popular platforms with similar
features, we identified both unique features Reddit offers and
potential additions it could adopt. Our analysis included three
direct competitors—Quora, Stack Exchange, and X (Twitter)—as well as three indirect competitors—Discord, Tumblr, and TikTok. After the comparison, we gathered some takeaways, highlighting
features Reddit could integrate and common usability issues from
other platforms/apps to avoid.
Overall, we conclude that Reddit app stands out as a leading community-driven
platform, catering to a diverse audience across various interests.
However, its user interface and user flows presents usability challenges
that could further enhance the user experience. Another key finding
for us is that there is room for growth in content management and user
engagement strategies.
3. Usability Testing
3.1 Screener
We first need to figure out who we can recruit for this project, We come together to figure out the criteria for the participants that could help us with the usablity result the most. For the limited amount of time and resources, we decided to focus on users between 18-35 years old, since this is the majority of the user group. We are splitting them into to groups--users who have used Reddit for at least 6 months, and users who have never used Reddit before but know what it is. In this way, we can compare how experienced user and inexperienced user interact with the app differently, and we can gether those essential information to pinpoint some of the higher-severity usability issues.
Screener script
3.2 Interviews
We are in the processing of creating the essential tasks for
participants to test how they interact with the app. The goal to
the app is to find out the most critical usability issues that
appear in the daily usage. Each of our interview session is
aimed to be 45 minutes and we are trying to interview at least 6
participants to cover most of the usability issues.
I am excited to update our progress as soon as possible!
4. Final Report
After we are done with the interviews, I will be adding the final report to this section as soon as possible! Stay tuned!