Tracy Khiew is a multidisciplinary designer based in New York. Her practice spans branding, art direction, digital campaigns, design systems, UI design, and interaction design.
Resume
Work
Note: This case study uses anonymized wireframes and a pseudonym to protect client confidentiality under NDA. The research process, findings, and recommendations remain true to the original work.
You're trying to buy a desk lamp online.
You open Google. Type "modern desk lamp under $100."
Get millions of results.
Click on Wayfair, decent options.
Open Ikea in another tab, cheaper but limited selection.
Maybe West Elm?
Another tab.
Wait...
Which store had free shipping?
You're now comparing the same lamp across three different tabs, losing track of prices, wondering if there's a better way.
Timeline:
6 weeks
Team:
Tracy, Shelly, Archie
Role:
User Research, Test Moderation, Report Design
Tools:
Figma, Dscout Private Panels, Zoom, Google Forms
6 weeks
Team:
Tracy, Shelly, Archie
Role:
User Research, Test Moderation, Report Design
Tools:
Figma, Dscout Private Panels, Zoom, Google Forms
Evaluating a Shopping Discovery Platform Moderated usability testing for an e-commerce startup
That's the problem ShopOrg set out to solve.
ShopOrg is a shopping discovery platform that helps users find and compare stores in one place. Instead of juggling tabs, you could browse curated store collections, compare deals across retailers, and save favorites. Sounds useful, right?
That's what we thought too. Until we put it in front of real people.
We tested ShopOrg with six participants through moderated remote usability sessions. Each participant completed 10 tasks across three key pages: the homepage, store information page, and favorites page.
What worked well
Where things broke down
Five out of six participants couldn't find the save button: the platform's core feature. The unlabeled "+" icon went unnoticed despite participants actively searching for a way to save stores."I don't see anywhere where it's asking you to save the store."
More importantly, when we asked if participants would return to ShopOrg, they struggled to explain why they'd choose it over existing tools.
"...but how is that going to help me shop better is what I don't understand"
Post-test ratings
| Question | Mean | What This Means |
|---|---|---|
| Navigation Ease | 3.8/5 | Participants successfully completed tasks |
| Overall Experience | 3.4/5 | Neutral feelings about the platform |
| Likelihood to Return | 3.2/5 | Wouldn’t choose it over current tools |
[Click image to enlarge]
Testing With Blueprints, Not Buildings
Low-fidelity wireframes identified issues early in the design process
ShopOrg was in pre-launch stealth mode. Due to strict NDAs, we couldn't show participants the proprietary "smart technology" with the final branding. We were left with stripped-down, grayscale wireframes, just like a blueprint showing structure and layout without full functionality.
We designed our research approach to maximize what wireframes could tell us about core usability issues. We built task flows that tested navigation patterns and feature discoverability across three key pages. Not every button clicked. Not every page connected.
But wireframes answer the fundamental questions that matter most pre-launch:
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Our client shared over 40 wireframes with us during the kickoff meeting. We reviewed them to understand the platform's structure and identify key pages to test.
The advantage
Wireframe testing catches big structural problems early, before and during high-fidelity design and development.We found several critical usability issues through our sessions, with enough time for ShopOrg to address them before their February 2026 relaunch.
Finding these issues in wireframes costs far less than discovering them after launch.
We needed to answer three things before ShopOrg’s relaunch:
Can users understand what SHOPORG does?
Not just "it's a shopping site," but why it's different from Amazon or Google.Can they navigate the core features?
Finding stores, comparing prices, saving favorites, discovering deals, the things that make ShopOrg useful.Would they come back?
Understanding is one thing. Actually choosing to return is another.Remote usability testing revealed what numbers couldn't tell us
We focused on three key pages: the homepage (first impressions matter), the store info page (where users explore products and deals), and the favorites store page (where they organize saved stores).
Each session followed the same structure: 10 tasks testing navigation, discovery, and features. Participants shared their screens via Zoom while thinking out loud; telling us what confused them, what made sense, what they expected to see next.
[Click image to enlarge]
[Click image to enlarge]
Six active online shoppers who use multiple e-commerce platforms
We recruited six participants through client’s referral and Private Panels over two weeks. All of them were active online shoppers (shopping multiple times per month), used various e-commerce platforms, and were looking for better ways to discover stores. Ages ranged from 25-55.
We needed people who shopped often enough to have opinions about the process, but weren't so loyal to existing tools that they'd reject anything new.
Making Sense of the Data
We synthesized findings through affinity diagramming
We used affinity diagramming to organize our findings, grouping similar observations, looking for patterns, identifying which issues appeared across multiple participants versus isolated incidents.
Some problems showed up once. Others showed up in every single session. Those became our critical findings.
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Finding 1: Users Understood the Concept But Couldn't See Why They'd Use It
All six participants grasped what ShopOrg was within seconds. But when we asked if they'd actually use it, the value proposition wasn't compelling enough to change their existing behavior.
"Doesn't seem to do more for me than what a regular Google Search would."
Participants could navigate the platform, but couldn't articulate why they'd return to it over their current shopping methods.
Finding 2: Critical Features Were Hidden in Plain Sight
The platform's most valuable features like saving stores, viewing products, and finding deals were not immediately visible to users.
Five out of six participants failed to find the unlabeled "+" save button. Products and deals were hidden in tabs and filters rather than displayed upfront where users expected them.
"I don't see anywhere where it's asking you to save the store."
"I don't want to scroll to realize what the store sells, [I'd] rather have it described at beginning."
Finding 3: Platform Organization Created Confusion
The differences between categories, collections, and favorites weren't clear to participants. They struggled to understand how these features differed from each other and when they'd use each one.
Eight design improvements to enhance clarity and discoverability
We delivered eight recommendations organized by page to address these findings. These recommendations aimed to improve value clarity, discoverability, and navigation before ShopOrg’s February 2026 relaunch.
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Research informed immediate design iterations for relaunch
On December 11, we presented our findings to the ShopOrg team via Zoom, walking through the three core findings and eight recommendations.
We delivered a 50-page usability report, presentation deck, and recording.
Our client told us they began redesigning the homepage based on our recommendations. With two months until their February 2026 launch, our research caught critical usability issues early enough to fix them before thousands of users encountered them.
*What This Taught Me*
Understanding a product doesn't mean needing it.
All six participants grasped what ShopOrg was within 30 seconds. But when we asked if they'd use it, the answers got vague. Five out of six couldn't articulate how the platform would actually help them shop, even though they understood its features. Features need clear value propositions, not just explanations. It's not enough for users to understand. They have to care.
"Obvious" design is only obvious to the people who designed it.
The + button seemed perfectly clear to the ShopOrg team. To users, it was invisible. The save button without a label failed 83% of the time. Icons need words. Buttons need context. What seems simple when you've stared at a design for months is completely opaque to someone seeing it for the first time.
The most valuable data came from observation, not intervention.
My first instinct as a moderator was to help participants when they got stuck. But staying silent during those uncomfortable pauses revealed exactly where the design failed. When someone couldn't find the save button and I resisted jumping in, their natural behavior showed us the problem more clearly than any direct question could.
Low-fidelity testing catches expensive problems early.
We were testing static wireframes with limited clickability. No fancy animations, no real data, half the buttons didn't work. And we still uncovered critical usability issues that would have been exponentially more expensive to fix after launch. You don't need a polished prototype to find the invisible save button.
This case study is a condensed portfolio version. Click here to view the full 51-page usability report for complete methodology and findings.
*Note: Client name anonymized as ShopOrg for this case study.
**This project was completed as part of INFO-644 Usability Theory & Practice at Pratt Institute with guidance from Professor Craig MacDonald.