Chanel Test

Monalisa Paschal

September 30, 2023

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Independence Avenue, S.W. - Washington, D.C. 20201
 Introduction
Chanel is a brand that uses its website to inform customers on new products
as well as purchase online.

Executive Summary
The usability test took place at my home on September 30, 2023. The
purpose was to see how easy it is to navigate the Chanel website.

My husband was the test subject. The session lasted approximately 20

minutes. My husband felt the website was too busy and hard to navigate and
find a specific product. The participant does not visit high fashion websites.

This test identified a few problems:

 Their online feature to try different colors of makeup using my web
camera did not work. It was asking me to turn my device to a portrait
view instead of landscape, but I was on my desktop.
 Their fall-winter catalog is not available online. It is a ploy to get you
into one of their boutique stores which is in New York City, New York.

This contains my observations and participant feedback, as well as

information regarding the session and its results.

Methodology
Sessions
I recruited my husband as a participant. He rarely browses the internet to
shop for Chanel stuff online. He researches business websites occasionally at
his job. He is opinionated when it comes to what a good website should have.

After he completed each task, I asked him to answer some questions on a

scale from 1 to 5, 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree. Some
examples include:
 How easy it was to navigate the homepage.
 How easy it was to find perfume in their perfumes page.

After the last task was completed, I asked my husband to rate the website
overall using a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being
strongly agree. Some examples Include:
 Ease of use
 Satisfaction
 Selection of items
 Check out process.

In addition, I asked him overall website questions:

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  What the participant liked most.
 What the participant liked least.
 Recommendations for improvement.

Participant

The test took place on September 30, 2023. The participant works as a CRM
Admin/Marketing & Data Warehouse associate for a financial institution. He is
constantly performing research on opposing bank websites to provide
feedback in their Marketing Strategy sessions.

Evaluation Tasks/Scenarios

The test participant completed two tasks that I created.

 Find the new green bottle of Chance Chanel Perfume.
 Proceed to the process of checking out until you must type in payment
information.

Results
Task Completion Success Rate

My participant completed task one successfully. He also completed task two

successfully.

Task Completion Rates

Participant Task 1 Task 2

1 √ √

Success 1 1

Task Ratings
After the completion of each task, my participant rated the processes:
 The ease of navigating to the Perfume Section.
 The ease of locating that specific Chance Perfume in the green
bottle.
 The checkout process was simple.

The 5-point rating scale ranged from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly

agree). My husband thought the site was like finding a needle in a haystack.
The website was very scattered and not concise. He felt no one would be able
to simply buy one item and just checkout. He feels that the aim of the
website is to keep the user browsing and buying more products than they
“intended” to buy. However, he did believe the checkout process was
straightforward and easy. Because Chanel wants to separate people from
their money.

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 Ease in Finding Information

The participant thought it was unnecessarily difficult to find the perfume

section and then the specific perfume he was asked to look for (rating=1).
The participant disagreed that it was easy to locate the Chanel Perfume
collection (rating=1).

Ease in Checkout Process

The participant thought that the checkout process was simple (rating=5). He
said that they would make that easy because all Chanel wants is your money.

Test 1 – Task Ratings & Percent Agree

Ease to
Task Accessibility
locate
1 – Find perfume in
Chanel number 5 1 1
collection
2 – Check out process
until payment 5 5
information
Scale of 1-5; 1= Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly agree

Time on Task
The testing software recorded the time on task for the participant. Task one
was slightly more difficult for the participant than task two.

Task one required the participant to browse the Chanel.com website to find a
Chance Chanel in the perfume collection. It took him 3 minutes and 45
seconds to complete this task.

Task two required the participant to proceed to the checkout process until he
reached the payment information. It took him 30 seconds to complete this
task.

For example:
Time on Task
P1
Task 1 3:45

Task 2 0:30

Overall Metrics
Overall Ratings
After task session completion, participants rated the site for eight overall
measures. These measures include:
 Locating perfume section
 Accessing specific perfume to purchase
 Checkout process
 Navigation of website

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  Satisfaction

The participant strongly agreed that the checkout process was easy. She was
neutral regarding the selection of jewelry available. The participant disagreed
that the website was easy to navigate and find the collection needed.

See table below.

Post-Task Overall Questionnaire

Strongly Strongly
Disagree Neutral Agree
Disagree Agree
It was easy to find
the Chanel 1
Perfume
It was hard to
access the specific 1
perfume I chose.
It was easy to
1
checkout my item.
It was easy to
navigate 1
Chanel.com
Satisfaction with
1
Perfume collection
Satisfaction with
1
checkout process
Satisfaction with
navigation of 1
Chanel.com

4.6.2 Likes, Dislikes, Participant Recommendations

Upon completion of the tasks, participants provided feedback for what they
liked most and least about the website, and recommendations for improving
the website.

Liked Most
The following comments capture what the participants liked most:
 The checkout process was simple.
 The website was up to date.
 It looked modern (He used the term “It didn’t look geriatric”).

Liked Least
The following comments capture what the participants liked the least:
 It is not designed for a quick buying process.
 It seems designed to keep people looking through the site.
 Too many photos to click and scroll through to get to items.

Recommendations for Improvement

 Less photos.
 More clear buttons to click.
 Ease of use overall.
 More people of color representations.

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 Recommendations
The recommendations section provides recommended changes and
justifications driven by the participant success rate, behaviors, and
comments. Each recommendation includes a severity rating. The following
recommendations will improve the overall ease of use and address the areas
where participants experienced problems or found the interface/information
architecture unclear.

Organize the website better overall (Task 1)

Task 1 required the participant to find a necklace for their mother under the Chanel #5 collection.

Change Justification

 Less photos. The participant believed that Chanel.com would

 More clear buttons to click.
 Ease of use overall.
 Add more people of color
be easier for people to navigate if they removed
all the different photos.
Also, too many tabs and buttons are not too
visible on the site. Hard to know where to click
and navigate.
The ease of use would mean that it shouldn’t be
a scavenger hunt to look for some stinking
perfume.
The website makes no bones about being a
“white product”. He says he only saw one black
person in his site browse. He’s amazed that this
has not been an issue.

Conclusion
Implementing the recommendations and continuing to work with users (i.e.,
real lay persons) will ensure a continued user-centered website.

Overall, Chanel.com was found to be more difficult to navigate compared to

other consumer websites. The recommendations listed would allow
Chanel.com to become more user-friendly, allowing for growth in their
website traffic, and become more diverse in the future.

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