The Task-Based UX Benchmark Study
UserZoom ran a quick competitive UX benchmark study between Adidas and Under Armour, two internationally known fitness clothing and accessories retailers, to see how users experienced navigational and core tasks, as well as how they rate their overall experience on these websites.
We ran an unmoderated remote task-based benchmark study with 60 in-the-wild users on their own devices over the course of a single day
Participants were equally divided between the companies’ US sites so that 30 went to each site
They completed several tasks while on the site: a screenshot click test, a tree test on their main menu, and a task-based test where we asked them to find the overview page for each brand’s proprietary app
We also measured their brand perception and how they rated their overall experience
First impressions are lasting impressions
We wanted to know the users’ first impression to both of the contenders’ sites. We showed all 60 participants images of Adidas’ and Under Armour’s homepages and asked them to choose which site they associated with several UX attributes.
Under Armour’s layout won in terms of being seen as Organized and Easy. Adidas layout made users feel the site was Trustworthy and Lively, but the site was also voted as Overwhelming by a large margin of users.
Both sites were practically tied when it came to being seen as Welcoming, Informational and Helpful.
Round one goes to Under Armour!
Screenshot Click Test
To understand if visitors were able to easily find important information, we showed them each an image of the assigned contender’s homepage. Based on that image, we asked them to complete a simple task: “Where would you click first if you wanted to get email updates from the brand?”
Adidas
50% of users correctly clicked on either “Newsletter Signup” (27%) in the header or on the banner above the footer (23%). What’s interesting is that 17% clicked on “Sign up for news & get 15% off” right next to the box where you can enter your email address – the problem is that the text isn’t actually clickable.
Under Armour
57% of users correctly clicked on Get Email Updates in the footer of the page, which was broken into two areas – Email Address (30%) and Sign Up (27%).
With a 7% more success, Round 2 goes to Under Armour!
Tree Test
Good information architecture is necessary for providing a good search experience. To evaluate the findability, labeling, and organization of the contending sites’ structures we placed participants in a plausible scenario: “You want to take a look at the new arrivals for Fall. Where would you click?”
Adidas
To better show where users thought they would be able to find new releases we hid items that didn’t have any data. Overall, 67% of users correctly chose New Arrivals under Men’s or Women’s. There was also a selection for New Arrivals under Kids which no one selected.
Under Armour
Under Armour had a section titled New Arrivals, which is why they saw an 86% success rate for the task. Round 3 goes to Under Armour!
Online Task-Based Test
Both brands are delving into fit trackers and smart clothing technology, both of which are augmented with mobile apps. With customers who are used to finding clothing and accessories on retail sites, we wanted to see how well users would be able to find information on these apps. To evaluate the success of the task, validation through an URL was used so that only participants who reached the correct page would have the task be rated as success and then be redirected to further questions.
A Non-Success result meant that the participant decided to either abandon the task, which was marked as an Abandon, or they said they had found the page before reaching the correct URL which was marked as an Error.
So, how did the two challengers do?
Success
Both sites saw a majority of their users successfully complete the task, but participants were 5% more likely to be successful on Adidas’ site than on Under Armour’s.
That being said, successful users on Under Armour’s site were generally able to complete the task with less clicks and in significantly less time.
Adidas user session
Under Armour user session
Non Success
Participants who abandoned the Adidas site said they did so because they didn’t see anything related to apps and gave up. Turns out that they didn’t make the correlation between the miCoach section and apps.
Under Armour had more people err rather than abandon since people were getting confused by the individual pages for each app and not reaching the overview page. This is also why they had longer time on task.
Ease of Use
After the tasks we asked all the users to rate how easy or difficult it was to accomplish, with 1 = Very Difficult, 4 = Neutral and 7 = Very Easy.
Round 4 was a tough match-up, with both sites performing very well. However, despite Adidas actually having 5% more successful users, we’re giving this round to Under Armour for the combination of high a success rate, lower time on task/clicks, and a higher ease of use rating from participants.
Problems & Frustrations
We asked the users which, if any, of the following problems they encountered while on the site.
Adidas
Under Armour
Brand Perception
We asked participants to rate their perception of the brand before and after their experience with the site.
For the rating scale: 1 = Very Negative, 4 = Neutral, and 7 = Very Positive. We also included the option for participants to say they weren’t familiar with the brand before the task.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
After participants interacted with the sites we asked them to rate how likely it was they would recommend them to friends, family or colleagues.
This week’s group of participants were more likely to recommend Adidas’ site to friends, family and colleagues than Under Armour’s site.
When it comes to overall brand perception, round 5 goes to Adidas for a lower reporting of problems & frustrations, and a higher Net Promoter Score.
Conclusion
This week was a tough fight between two very polished brands that obviously put a lot of thought into their websites. But just like the Highlander, there can only be one.
This week’s winner is Under Armour for a combination of lower time on task for successful participants during the task-based portion along with fewer abandons, more successful completes during the tree test as well as a higher ease of use score.
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