CarePortal Scales Usability Testing to Accelerate Launch with Useberry

CarePortal is a technology platform that connects the needs of children and families in crisis with people who can help, primarily through local churches. As part of its ongoing commitment to improve user experience, the team turned to Useberry to validate design decisions and enhance the request discovery experience for church users, ensuring a more intuitive and efficient way to meet urgent community needs.

Leading this effort were Makayla Jun, Product Design Manager, and Ellie Stigall, Product Designer 1. Together, they orchestrated a hybrid research approach, combining moderated interviews with an unmoderated usability study via Useberry.

“Running an unmoderated study in parallel with our moderated sessions gave us fast, high-quality insights that reinforced our decisions and helped us launch with confidence.” -Ellie Stigall

Their goal? To test whether new interface updates, such as view modes and filters, would improve how churches find and respond to requests.

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The Task

CarePortal introduced new features to the Browse Requests page:

• Multiple view options (Grid, Table, Map)
• An “All Requests” filter that expands search results beyond a church’s local community

For their users, it’s critical that churches and community members can quickly identify and respond to requests. However, the previous experience made it difficult for users to filter, compare, and act on requests efficiently, especially outside their default local area. The team aimed to determine if their new designs would make request browsing easier and more effective.

To validate this, the team conducted a usability study with six (6) active CarePortal users (3 on mobile, 3 on desktop). The moderate-length study blended both quantitative and qualitative feedback, offering a well-rounded view of the user experience. Participants completed tasks such as “Find a request in your area that you could respond to,” followed by questions that explored their preferred view (Grid, Table, or Map) and how intuitive they found the filtering options.

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The Challenge

Working under a tight deadline to validate multiple new features across mobile and desktop, the team needed rapid feedback to guide design before the next product release.

While moderated interviews helped uncover qualitative insights, the team needed broader validation—quickly.

“The platform’s flexibility and speed were essential to turning around findings in time to influence an upcoming release.” – Ellie Stigall

With Useberry, they were able to:

• Launch an unmoderated usability test in parallel with live sessions
• Validate hypotheses across a broader sample
• Capture high-quality feedback without needing to schedule or facilitate each session

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The Solution

Useberry helped bridge the gap between moderated and unmoderated research efforts. While the team conducted live one-on-one interviews with six participants, they simultaneously launched a parallel unmoderated study using Useberry with six additional users. This dual-track approach was key to meeting a tight timeline without sacrificing depth or quality of insight.

“We were especially impressed by the speed of setup, quality of responses, and how well the findings supported what we’d heard in moderated interviews.” – Ellie Stigall

The setup was seamless, enabling the team to quickly gather actionable insights. With Useberry, they were able to:

• Import their Figma prototype
• Define key tasks and follow-up questions
• Distribute the test through a secure link

Useberry captured:

• Behavioral metrics, such as task duration and completion rates
• Qualitative feedback that closely aligned with insights from moderated sessions, reinforcing confidence in the results

This dual-track approach gave a broader and more reliable picture of user behavior in a condensed timeframe.

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The Results

• ✅ 100% of participants (6/6) successfully completed the main task, confirming the overall usability of the new design.
• 👍 Grid View emerged as the most popular view, mentioned positively by 100% of participants.
• 🔄 80% of users said they would switch between views depending on context, validating the team’s hypothesis that offering multiple view options improves usability and encourages broader engagement.
• 🗺️ Map View received mixed feedback. While some users appreciated it for proximity-based browsing, others preferred alternative layouts. The team opted to keep Map View as the default to maintain platform consistency and support upcoming feature integrations.
• 🔍 The “All Requests” filter was generally intuitive, though some participants were unclear on what “local” meant. This feedback led to a refined, more user-friendly version of the copy in the final release.

These findings directly informed design decisions for the latest product update, saving hours of manual testing and increasing confidence in user experience decisions.

By improving discoverability and clarity, CarePortal is furthering its mission: empowering more churches to act faster on urgent needs from families in crisis.