Hooked on Phonics

Conducting an evaluation of Hooked & Company’s checkout experience.

Background

Hooked & Company 

The Goal

Defining Expectations

Role:

Tools:

Hooked & Company, home of Hooked on Phonics, has been trusted with improving children’s literacy since the 1980s. They’ve been serving parents of struggling readers, kids looking to get ahead in school, and homeschoolers by offering a comprehensive reading program for families to use at home (for kids ages 3-8). 

In the Spring 2025 semester, my team and I at Pratt Institute’s DX Center, partnered with Hooked & Company to evaluate their checkout experience. Our goal was to understand the pros and cons of the checkout process and then report back to our client with a usability evaluation report. 

To gain a deeper understanding of a participant’s pain points and needs, we chose to evaluate using remote, moderated usability testing sessions. Every member of the team would conduct two usability tests through Zoom, which would leave us with information from six participants in total.

What does our client need?

To start off, we held a kick-off meeting with Hooked on Phonics’ design leaders, Jamie and Luke to understand more about what they need from our team. 

Participants

Who do we talk to?

While brainstorming tasks, we also thought about who we would be inviting to participate in our usability test. It’s important that we find people who fit the common demographic of a Hooked on Phonics buyer.

During our kick-off meeting, we learned that most users of Hooked Phonics were parents (more so mothers) between the ages of 25-45, looking for a reading product for their children between the ages of 3-6. Because of this, we ensured that our participants met this criteria. With Panelfox, we created a screener that allowed us to find participants easily while also ensuring that they were within our criteria.

Issue 1

Upselling pages are inefficient and confusingly placed in the checkout process

In its current state, the two opportunities come in two different pages of the checkout process. This not only increases the steps required to complete the process but also increases the chance for user frustration. Along with it being two different pages, it is also two different designs. As stated by our users:

Recommendation 1

Upselling pages should be combined for efficiency and moved earlier in the checkout flow to improve user clarity.

We recommend merging the two different pages. Doing this would reduce the number of steps in the checkout process and also make it so users can see every additional item they can purchase on one page.

Issue 1.1

The placement of the Upselling Pages is confusing

Although merging the two upsell pages fixes one issue with them, another issue that arose during our usability tests is that people assume the checkout process is complete after being shown the first upsell page. This means that they would exit the webpage and end the checkout process before they can get to the end.

During our usability testing, some of our participants had this to say about this part of the process:

This is the current checkout process: 

Recommendation 1.1

Move Upselling Step to earlier in Checkout flow

After conducting research on different e-commerce websites, all of them have one thing in common: the confirmation page comes right after the payment page. According to our research, this seems like the most natural order of the checkout process.

Along with merging the two upselling pages, we recommend showing this page before the payment page. This aligns with standard checkout flows and leverages users' existing mental models, potentially improving conversion. 

Issue 2

Information overload on the landing page 

Upon arriving on the landing page to purchase the subscription to Hooked on Phonics, users are greeted with a lot of information . This leads to users feeling overwhelmed, skimming, or just skipping content on the webpage that they may need. Two users remarked upon taking in the webpage, “This is too much information,” and “What do I look at first?”

Of our six users tested, only two looked through the whole page, and only one took the time to read all of the content on there. Most users skimmed roughly the top third of the page only.

The current landing page includes the following content sections:

• Your child will read, guaranteed

• Reviews and Ratings

• Benefits

• What makes it a favorite among families

• How it works

• Everything you’ll get

• Limited time offer

• Proven to work for 30 years

Recommendation 2

We imagine the most important sections of the page are: "Your child will read", “Everything you will get”, “Reviews”, and
”How it works.”

Given that only two out of our six users actually read the whole page, and three didn’t make it past the “reviews and ratings” section, we recommend highlighting what’s offered right away

Second, we recommend keeping the “reviews and ratings” section but moving it to near the bottom of the landing page

We encourage moving it down as many users are familiar with finding ratings at the bottom of retail websites and to ensure that details around what users will get are highlighted first.

We believe the “how it works” section provides a good, general reminder of how the service works for users looking for that knowledge, and would follow the “everything you’ll get” section nicely.

Keeping the “proven to work for 30 years” section at the very end of the webpage serves as a strong source of credibility for users. 

Issue 3

Although our participant critieria emphasized that they should not be familiar with Hooked on Phonics, we believe that the website should be able to explain what it is they are purchasing. However, insights from our usability study show that visitors weren’t aware of what they were purchasing until the payment page.

As a team, conducting user testing and comparing through other subscription-based platforms, we observed that the most effective sites use a combination of concise descriptions and clear visuals to communicate value. 

After

Conclusion

The original layout focuses on structure and clarity but leans toward a more transactional and rigid presentation. It separates the items well, but lacks warmth and feels a bit clinical.

How did Hooked & Company Respond?

At the end of the project, we presented our findings and recommendations to Jamie and Luke and they had a lot of positive feedback. Before coming to our team, they conducted their own usability testing and had a lot of similar insights to us. We were able to validate their own insights which will provide them the confidence needed to move forward with improving the checkout process. If we had more time, we would definitely love to work more to conduct testing on our solutions.

I’d like to thank Jamie and Luke for this opportunity to learn.

I’d especially like to thank my teammates Sara and Nallely for a pleasant and fun time working together!