Home Clients Usability Testing of Bulgarian Bank Websites

Usability Testing of Bulgarian Bank Websites

Client
Lucrat (internal project)
Motivation
A basic job of a bank's website is to present the bank and the services of the bank. The website must offer its content in a usable way and allow visitors to complete their tasks within the site and thus save users the time they would otherwise need to physically go to the bank. From the bank's point of view, the usable website would bring more clients yet reduce the employee workload.We wanted to test with real users how bank websites in Bulgaria fare with this job.
Goals
Our long-term objectives:
  • Offer the banks in Bulgaria a method for qualitative measurement and comparison of their websites.
  • Improve the way information is presented on bank websites. The specific objectives of the testing were:
  • Understand the problems that users encounter when interacting with bank websites.
  • Evaluate whether users find on bank websites the information they need and whether they understand it when they do.
  • Describe the strengths and weaknesses of Bulgarian bank websites.
  • Give recommendations for improvement of the usability of bank websites.
Results
Users succeed with their tasks on bank websites half of the time and are not completely satisfied:
  • Success rate = 53%: every second visitor, by using only the particular website manages to complete a task or find what he or she is looking for.
  • Orientation score = 0.38: users make almost three times more steps than necessary to complete a task.
  • Satisfaction = 3.2: (on a 1 to 5 scale; 5 being best): people are a bit more satisfied than dissatisfied with the websites.
Websites
We tested the websites of the following banks: Bank DSK, Bulbank, Eurobank, First Investment Bank, Hebros Bank, HVB Bank Biochim, ING Bank, Post Bank, ProCredit Bank, Raiffeisenbank, SG Expressbank, and United Bulgarian Bank.
Conclusions
The tested websites are beautiful and rich in content. They load quickly and offer structured information. Product and services information is available in varying degree and level of detail. The websites also offer calculators or interest tables and thus help users identify interest rates for deposits and credits. The main problems that users encounter are related to navigation and comprehension. The basic factors for the navigational problems are:
  • The information structure of the websites does not match the expectations of users;
  • The menu items, links, and labels of interface elements are incomplete or use bank jargon.
Comprehension is difficult because:
  • Texts often use an incorrect approach to users and instead of offering specific data they advertise.
  • Texts are not well balanced at times they are too complex and at times too simple. The use of specific bank terminology further reduces comprehension.
Report
A report presents the complete results of the study. The report is available in Bulgarian only: details and pricing information in Bulgarian. In 74 pages (A4 paper) the report offers:
  • Summarized results and conclusions for all websites and specific results for each website. Results are accompanied by qualitative analysis and explanations of the reasons for higher and lower scores.
  • Description and analysis of real problems that users encounter when performing some of the most basic tasks: searching for information for credits, savings, bank cards, and addresses of branches.
  • 50+ recommendations for usability improvements. These can be used as a checklist for every bank website. The recommendations can be especially useful during design or redesign.
  • 50+ color screenshots illustrating various strengths and weaknesses of the websites.
  • 50+ comments by participants: real words people use when working with bank websites. You can feel various moods such as delight, frustration, disbelief.
  • Test methodology description, allowing rerunning the user tests.
Benefits
The report will give you information that you can use to:
  • Compare your website to the websites of other banks in Bulgaria. Being able to make such a comparison could be very useful for your internet strategy.
  • Evaluate the website of your bank (or the website of any bank) against the recommendations and problems listed in the report.
  • Quickly improve the usability of your website. Most of the recommendations are very specific and can be applied immediately at relatively low cost.
  • Design a new bank website or redesign an existing bank website. The recommendations can be used as a checklist by designers and developers.
Presentation
We presented the results of the study and the report at a seminar entitled 50% of Bank Websites Succeed
(www.zabankite.info). The seminar took place on 18 March 2005 and was organized jointly with Netage. The attendees were more than 60; among them representatives of 14 Bulgarian banks.