Global Forest Watch
Usability Testing | UX Research
Class Project - INLS 719: Usability Testing and Evaluation @ UNC Chapel Hill
A semester-long project during graduate school evaluating a data visualization website by applying usability testing and evaluation research methods.
Project Overview
Over the course of a semester-long usability project, my team and I conducted a usability evaluation of the website Global Forest Watch, an open-access, online monitoring platform that provides near-real-time data and tools for tracking forests worldwide. We chose to focus on the Map feature of the website due to its extensive functions while still presenting some critical usability issues. The project included drafting a comprehensive test plan, followed by conducting a summative usability test to help helped inform our proposed design recommendations for future iterations of the site.
We began by conducting heuristic evaluations of the website in order to guide the formation of our tasks for the uesability test. This way, we would be able to understand the extent of critical heuristic violations, helping us prioritize features that presented to be valuable for users, but exhibited usability issues that would limit user function.
With these tasks, we drafted a comprehesive test plan in which we detailed our evaluation goals, measures and metrics. We defined our qualitative and quatitative data types, as well as our methods, materials, and test setup for our test sessions. Our test results were then analyzed and presented in a final presentation, in which we also made informed design suggestions. This project deepened my understanding of the usability test process as well as demonstrating the importance of comprehensive testing in oder to translate user insights into actionable design solutions that address real-world needs.
Role:
Usability Tester, Notetaker 2
Team:
Cindy Xu
Estella Calcaterra
Navya Babu
Timeframe:
Sept. 2025 - Dec. 2025
Global Forest Watch
Global Forest Watch (GFW) is an open-access, online monitoring platform that provides near-real-time data and tools for tracking forests worldwide, available at https://www.globalforestwatch.org and through the Forest Watcher mobile app. It is managed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in collaboration with partners such as Google, research institutions, NGOs, and technology companies. Its main goal is to enable governments, companies, researchers, journalists, and citizens to monitor forest cover change, biodiversity, land use, and threats such as logging, fires, and agricultural expansion. GFW integrates satellite imagery, government records, and crowdsourced data in order to provide their near-real-time data on forest change, allowing users to explore interactive maps and generate custom analyses for their data needs. Users are also able to download datasets on deforestation, fires, land use, and biodiversity at both global and local scales. Due to the system being accessible through a browser, the system does not require users to log in to access its features, allowing users to easily access and evaluate its data.
We selected GFW due to its extensive features and functions. It is a highly data-intensive platform with large datasets on a global, country, and regional scale on a wide variety of data relating to forestry. Despite its complexity, GFW’s interface still remains relatively clean and appears well designed to support broad usability. It allows users to explore and analyze real-world data without requiring specialized expertise, login credentials, or actions that could have unintended consequences.
Evaluation Goals
To guide our initial research plan, we needed to define our evaluation goals, identify key questions, and establish our evaluation measures and metrics. Looking at these goals helped us to develop an understanding of how intuitive the system is in terms of the design of its major features, identifying features for which the system was not as effective in its messaging of instructions based on how well users were able to complete tasks associated with that feature.
1
Visibility
Are users able to effectively navigate and adjust the visibility of the Map feature in order to view the information being sought?
2
Navigability
Are users able to effectively navigate to features of the Map to use it to its full potential?
Research Design and Envrionement
We applied research design principles we learned in class and administered a within-subjects usability study, which included the following metrics:
Performance
Time on task
Task completion/success rate
Verbal/Facial expressions of frustration, doubt, and/or confusion
Self-Report
Think aloud
Post-task Likert scale
System Usability Scale
Manning Hall at UNC Rm 014
A more in-depth test plan can be found linked below.
Post-Session Interview
Test Design
Introduction
Pre-test questionnaire
Task completion
Post-test interview and questionnaire
Observe comments regarding the system
Suggestions for improving the system
Test Envrionement
Usability Tasks
For our usability test session, we created four usability tasks, which directly correlated to our evaluation goals and findings from our heuristic evaluation. We wanted to test and see if our evaluation findings correlated with user findings.
Task List
Identify which year Sri Lanka had the highest primary forest loss.
Compare “Tree cover loss” and “Forest greenhouse gas emissions” in Brazil. Make any adjustments (i.e., lower the opacity) to the layers you think will help make it easier for you to interpret the overlap. What do you observe about the two layers?
Draw a shape on the map around the Maldives, including Male and Addu City, and find what biome the area is part of.
Find the number of “Highest confidence detection by multiple alert systems” for “Integrated Deforestation alerts” in Brazil from 2023 to 2025.
Findings
Once we were finished conducting our four usability tests, we then analyzed the data we gathered, with a focus on both qualitative and quantitative data, wanting to triangulate by cross-referencing performance data, self-reported difficulty, and observational insights to form a comprehensive understanding of usability challenges and user experience trends. We identified common themes with issues across our participants including unclear system visibility and lack of customization that iterferred with participant’s ability to complete tasks.
Participants struggled to find key tools.
3 out of 4 participants had difficulty locating the “Analyze” tool that is the main function of the system that allows users to view in-depth forest data and information.
The Draw Tool task took the longest among participants to complete, averaging right under 5 minutes for completion, with the largest hinderance being able to locate the tool in the first place according to think aloud notes, leading to only 2 out of 4 participants completing the tasks.
2. Participants were unable to customize their view, inhibiting user function.
The Layer Comparison task elicited the most points of confusion and frustration due to lack of system visibility and customization to improve visibility.
The Timeline task was difficult for users to navigate due to the need to naviagte between the Legend and Analysis tab in order to see system updates, leading to 4 out of 4 participants partially completing the task.
System Usability Scale
Our post-session questionnaire was a System Usability Scale questionnaire. We calculated the mean responses and calculated an average SUS score of 71.25. To put this into comparison, any score of 68 is considered "average.”
However, it is notable that one participant gave a rating of 57.5, falling below below the typical cutoff for acceptable usability. These results indicate that though individual differences highlight opportunities to improve user experience, most users perceived the system as usable.
Avg SUS v. Avg GFW SUS
Design Recommendations
After our analysis, we provided several UX recommendations in an attempt to improve the usability of GFW’s website. We supported these suggestions with quotes taken from participants’ think aloud sessions along with visual representations on our recommendations in our slide deck. In the end, we came up with three major design recommendations for GFW:
Layers
Problem: Layers have unclear descriptions, options, and coloring.
Recommendation: Clarify layers with text descriptions. Allow for further user customization: color, opacity, etc. This improves usability and accessibility (improving color contrast).
Analysis Tab
Problem: Separation of the Legend and Analysis tabs results in the Analysis features being less used and heavy cognitive load when switching between the two.
Recommendation: Allow users to view both tabs at once to update layer settings and view visualizations concurrently. Tabs could be collapsable.
Shape Analysis
Problem: The Analysis tab features are hidden with unclear descriptions.
Recommendation: Clarify what the features do and how to use them. This includes: Descriptions, Icons, or UI indications (i.e., on the map).
Project Takeaway
This project was one of the most comprehensive—and ultimately most rewarding—experiences of my graduate program. Working through the full lifecycle of the study pushed my team and me to engage deeply with the details of usability test design, from how the moderator greeted participants to where they were positioned in the room. Attending to these seemingly small decisions strengthened my research practice, which I believe have strengthened my skills as a researcher.
One of the most significant challenges we encountered was learning when to intervene and when to step back during sessions. We were constantly navigating the tension between supporting participants and allowing them to struggle productively. This experience sharpened my ability to recognize when participant errors were generating meaningful insights versus when they were creating unnecessary cognitive burden. Learning to make these judgment calls in real time was a pivotal growth moment for me as a researcher and has since informed how I design, moderate, and reflect on user studies.