Simplii Financial Online Banking Usability Tests

Evaluating the impact of collapsed versus expanded left rail navigation on the usability and user experience of the OLB Home Page (CV).

Date: February 2024

Methodology: 4 unmoderated usability tests, 40 participants (10 per prototype); conducted through Maze; 9 tasks per prototype​.

Research Goals: Identify usability issues and user pain points, and determine if the newly designed OLB Home Page (CV) maintains overall usability.​

01 Study Set-up

Objective

The product and design teams proposed a redesign of the post-sign-on Simplii Financial home page. The left-rail navigation for the account summary depicted collapsed sections, raising concerns about whether users struggled to complete tasks due to hidden content. The research team aimed to address the following problem:

“How might we improve the left-rail navigation to ensure users can easily access and complete tasks without confusion or difficulty?”

  • Collaborated with product and design teams to define assumptions and testing goals.

  • Teams assumed the collapsed left rail navigation would perform better due to its “less cluttered” appearance.

  • Developed 9 tasks to evaluate usability, such as finding the “Send e-Transfer” button using contextual prompts like:

    • “You and a friend went to a movie, and your friend covered the bill. How would you pay them back using your Simplii account?”

  • Conducted 4 usability tests comparing:

    • Collapsed vs. expanded left rail

    • Mobile vs. desktop

Process

Option A: Simplii home page with an Expanded Left-Rail Navigation.

Option B: Simplii home page with an Collapsed Left-Rail Navigation.

02 Study Findings

The expanded left rail navigation allowed users to navigate more easily on mobile and desktop platforms.

Key Insight

  • Average Direct Success

  • Average Mission Failed

  • Average Misclick Rate

  • Average Duration

The expanded left rail navigation performed significantly better than the collapsed left rail navigation across all metrics, for both the desktop and mobile flows. 

Usability Metrics

For this study, and in using Maze, we were able to track users heat maps. We used this information to dive into and specifically understand where users were getting confused. This also allowed us to further validate that having information in collapsed sections caused confusion surrounding copy, making users feel as if they had to click into sections to find what they were looking for.  

Heatmaps and Insights

I created groups and categories using inductive qualitative coding to find themes surrounding user sentiments. I concluded that the expanded left rail navigation prototypes had significantly more positive user sentiments surrounding its ease of navigation.

  • Concluded that expanded navigation generated significantly more positive user feedback.

Qualitative Analysis

Although the teams assumed users preferred a “less cluttered” collapsed navigation, our research supported moving forward with the expanded left rail navigation.

03 Final Recommendations

  • Mixed quantitative (metrics) and qualitative (sentiments) findings.

  • Referenced Nielsen Norman’s Usability Heuristic #6: Recognition rather than recall.

    • Hidden navigation made users feel information was missing or difficult to locate.

Validation Approach

This research validated the expanded left rail navigation as the optimal design, leveraging both emotional and behavioral insights to inform development.

Conclusion