Helping small businesses during COVID-19

By: Nikhil Shah and Fiona Doomasia

Small businesses were hit hard when the world went into lockdown due to COVID-19 in March 2020. Jumping Elephants decided to work with small businesses in Ottawa to help entrepreneurs elevate their digital presence and reach customers during this uncertain time. 

Jumping Elephants has worked with 3 businesses since April
We established pro-bono relationships with 3 small businesses in Ottawa to help optimize their websites.

How exactly do we “optimize” a website? We used 2 UX research methods to gather information on how to create a smooth and useful website experience for each business: heuristic evaluations and usability testing. You can do them too!

Heuristic Evaluations
We used the 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design to evaluate 10 crucial website issues that impact a user’s experience navigating the website. If you are interested in conducting a Heuristic Evaluation for your website, view and download (45 KB) our DIY-UX Heuristic Evaluation template.

21 remotely moderated user interviews 
Our next step was to ask users what they were thinking, feeling, and doing while observing their interactions with our clients’ websites. We first had discussions with our clients about the elements of the website that are important for their business and customers. We then turned these elements into tasks to ask potential website users to complete.

One of our moderators then ran usability sessions where we asked users to complete tasks on the websites, while sharing their screen. This helped us and the business owners gain a better understanding of what is working and what needs improvement on these Ottawa business websites.

You can find our heuristics evaluation and usability testing guide in our brand new Do-It-Yourself UX Kit.

Over 80 actionable recommendations provided
Insights gained from our research were then crafted into custom reports to convey our research to each client and walk them through the findings and recommendations discovered. We hope to empower our clients to transform their websites and businesses, staying relevant and sustainable during this unpredictable time and beyond.

At Jumping Elephants, we believe anything is possible and have made it happen. Drop us a line if you want to transform your products, services, or organization.