Simularium mobile usability study 2023

A study of first-time visits on mobile devices with ISSCR attendees

Background

Studies report that first impressions of a website:

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• Form very quickly (within seconds)
• Are influenced primarily by visual appearance and prototypicality
• Influence perception of trustworthiness
• Are slow to change (negative impression sticks)

Methodology

• 10 participants at ISSCR conference
• Participants used personal mobile devices
• ~10-20-minute sessions
• Received a participatory gift

Analytics

24% of first-time visitors (new users) to Simularium are on mobile devices.

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• They may be at a conference or talk and want to explore and learn about Simularium �from their phones.
• I wanted to better understand goals and learn about opportunities for improvement.

Analytics

Bounce rate for Simularium homepage on mobile is 66% for first-time users.

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• This means that they load the homepage and there is no further interaction because �they "bounced"!
• While some could be returning on desktop, it was valuable to investigate the cause and learn how to keep users engaged.

Analytics

Avg session duration on mobile is 40s for first-time users.

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• Likely not enough time for first-time users to achieve their goals
• After learning more about first-time mobile user goals, I could better evaluate this metric.

Analytics

Avg page visits on mobile is 1.17 for first-time users.

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• First-time visitors are not advancing past the homepage to either an example simulation �or the Quick Start page.
• I wanted to investigate why users were not exploring more.

Study goals

• Better understand motivations, goals, and expectations of first-time mobile users
• Discover pain points or barriers
• Identify improvement opportunities
• Use these opportunities to inform future improvements (prioritize with team)

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Key research questions

• What are the initial impressions and effectiveness of homepage content?
• What do users expect on mobile?
• Can users quickly and easily understand what Simularium is and what it could afford them?
• Can users quickly and easily understand how they could get started?
• Can users quickly and easily navigate?

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Key findings

• Participants understood performance/usability limitations of Simularium on mobile, but still expected some level of optimization.
• First-time mobile users want to explore and quickly learn what Simularium is, what it does, and how they could potentially use it. They often were observed missing the full picture.
• Most participants had brief positive reactions to visual design, followed by a lot of questions, uncertainty, and interaction struggles.

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Results – Discovery of the viewer

Successful navigation to an example simulation

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< ~1min

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< ~3min

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Results – Discovery of the viewer

Participants didn't know the cards were clickable.

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• Cards lack visual design cues indicating interaction
• Instructions to click cards was not noticed
• Card heights are excessive

Results – Discovery of Quick Start

Successful navigation to Quick Start page

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< ~8min

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< ~4min

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Results – Discovery of Quick Start

Participants never discovered the page.

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• Help navigation is not visible when scrolling down the page
• Associated “Help” with technical support, not resources
• Menu often didn’t work on mobile

Results – Homepage(visual & content)

• Excessive spacing and margins affect visual appearance
• Many reported content as useful but too dense
• ”Try Simularium Now” was misleading
• Excessive scrolling - expected some categorization of content
• ”Load you data” card was too eye catching and lost on participants

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Results – Homepage(visual & content)

Continued�

• Reported that helpful info was buried at the bottom of the page
• Time units on cards stood out but meaning was not immediately clear

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Results – Navigation

• EAICS logo links to allencell.org, not Simularium homepage, which�caused some disruption in navigating
• Help menu items opened in the same tab, navigating users away �from Simularium

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Results – Viewer

• Many dismissed popup warning without reading and some desired �more positive messaging
• Some did not quickly and easily discover plots and agents panels and
• Wanted card info accessible from within the app (viewer)

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What is Simularium and what can it do?

Conclusion

• Users expected more out of the current mobile experience.
• Many improvement opportunities apply beyond first-time mobile users.
• We have opportunity to make a better first impression, which impacts long-term perception.
• We have opportunity to help mobile users get to information they seek faster.
• We have opportunity to reduce bounce rate, increase engagement and potentially, adoption.

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Next Steps

• Improvement opportunities emerged that also apply to desktop or any first-time visitor experience. These should be prioritized first.
• There is a lot of "low hanging fruit" that can be addressed with minimal design and dev effort.
• Prioritize with team and fold into upcoming releases
• Compare metrics to baseline after implementation
• Consider getting started experience from other angles (desktop, role, etc)

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Thank You!

Questions?