Author: Marinel Stancu

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INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 3: REPRESENTATIVE USER TEST

Identified Website for Testing: TripAdvisor 

The identified site for testing is TripAdvisor, which is a travel information and booking site. It provides travel information on hotels, restaurants and attractions that is user generated content based on their own personal experiences. The site also allows individuals to research and book lodging, transportation and make reservations at restaurants. However, most TripAdvisor users rely on the site to provide information on things to do while on their trip more so than booking travel accommodations, given the popularity of competitors in that space, such being Orbitz, Book.com, Priceline, etc.

Tester Profile / Characteristics   

                Unfortunately, I could not find someone who fit the user profile for Group Assignment 2, which was a 42-year-old female from the Miami area that is married and has three children.

            The tester in this case is a single 34-year-old female from the Pheonix, Arizona area. She has a Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm. D.) and works as a pharmacist for a large hospital network in Arizona. She is trying to plan to weekend vacation to New York City for her and her partner to attend a wedding for a college friend. She is looking for flights from Pheonix to NYC airports, including Newark, NJ, if the price and itinerary is a better option. The wedding is being held on Saturday, November 19th and they would like to get to NYC on Friday evening. In addition, they both need to return to Pheonix on Sunday evening, as they need to return to work on Monday morning. She would also prefer a hotel near Central Park, as this is relativity close to the venue and has a lot to offer in terms of tourist attractions and a safer part of New York City. They are both vegans, as such, they also would need to find food options that accommodate them. The tester has experience with other travel sites and is comfortable using technology in her daily life and has traveled to NYC in the past.

User Testing Method and Approach    

            The testing method used was the Think Aloud approach, as this made the most sense given that the testing was done remotely via Microsoft Teams. Screensharing, screenshots and overall observation was used to document testing results and feedback from the respective tester. 

                Other testing methods such as the Empirical, Probing, Ethnographic Observations would also require the tester and moderator to be physically in the same location to be overall effective. This was a challenge given the physical distance and the costs of administrating these tests are exponentially more than of using Think Aloud via Microsoft Teams. The Paired Users was not used due to scheduling challenges and also the fact that performing the Paired Users testing would be far more effective when both testers are together and engaging in the actions as a team.

Modification to Specific Tasks for Tester  

            Given the challenges in finding a tester that matched the original user profile described in the Group Assignment 2, modifications were required to the User Tasks to fit the new scenario for this respective tester. These modifications were necessary, given the vast difference in the demographics and needs of the two users, such being their marital status, children, and that in this case it was a weekend trip for a wedding, rather than a cruise.

  • TASK 1: Book a weekend trip to New York from Pheonix returning Sunday evening.
  • This testing task was developed to assess the logical path they would take by the tester to address the ask. I am curious to see how the tester would start their search, if it is by date, pricing, or both to see what they prioritize first.
  • TASK 2: Find a hotel in Manhattan for the respective weekend near Central Park.
  • The testing task was developed to assess the approach taken by the tester to navigate the site to find a hotel room that meets the requirements, given they have never used this site.
  • TASK 3: Find a vegan bakery near the hotel.
  • The testing task was developed to assess the level of difficulty to find vegan options within a geographic area on the TripAdvisor site.

Specific Tasks Testing Results and Insights  

TASK 1: Book a weekend trip to New York from Pheonix returning Sunday evening.

The tester input Tripadvisor.com in the Google Chrome browser to get to the TripAdvisor home page. Once they arrived, they took about 20 seconds to examine the page to figure out where they can search for flights. The then clicked on the ‘More’ icon and was provided with a dropdown with many options, including ‘Flights.’ The tester then proceeded to click on ‘Flights’ option and was sent to a different page where they had to input the required information, such as the origin ‘From’ and the destination ‘To,’ which in this case was Pheonix and New York City. Then the tester was not sure about the ‘Compare Prices (in new window)’ section and just selected CheapFlights to test it out. Once they populated all the required fields, they hit the ‘Find Flight’ icon. This then opened a new window in the browser directing them to CheapFlights and also sent the user to a TripAdvisor results page. This took over 1 minute to load, which seemed a lot longer than most sites, such as Priceline, Orbtiz etc. Once the results were loaded, the tester noticed filters on the side and starting utilizing them. They selected ‘Non-Stop’ and used the filters for ‘Take-off’ and ‘Landing’ for Pheonix and found only 2 options that fit these criteria out of Newark, NJ for $778 each from American Airlines and JetBlue. They selected the American Airlines flight and then were redirected to the American Airlines site to complete the purchase of the tickets. The overall experience was rated as a 7/10, but they said they would prefer a different travel site or go directly to American Airlines to book the flight, as it appeared that TripAdvisor did not add much value.

TASK 2: Find a hotel in Manhattan for the respective weekend near Central Park.

The tester went back to the Tripadvisor.com homepage in the Google Chrome browser. Once there they clicked on the ‘Hotels’ icon and then asked where they wanted to find a hotel, which they typed in New York City. The tester then proceeded to click on ‘Search’ button. The results page took about 30 seconds to load with many options. The tester then utilized the filter on the side to select ‘Neighborhoods – Manhattan’ and ‘Distance From – 5 miles – Central Park’ and found some options that were within 2 miles of Central Park. The tester then decided to click on the Fairfield Inn Suites and then the page went blank and was trying to load and for about 5 minutes before giving an “Unresponsive Page” error with the options to “Wait or Leave the Page”. The tester was very frustrated at this point and we decided to end the test and mark this as a failure. It was not very clear what was the root cause of this issue, as the tester only clicked on one hotel, therefore, not exactly sure if it is isolated or systemic. However, it is recommended that TripAdvisor IT support investigate the matter to see why the page is being stuck.

TASK 3: Find a vegan bakery near the hotel.

            The tester went back to the Tripadvisor.com homepage in the Google Chrome browser. Once there they clicked on the ‘Restaurants’ icon and then asked where they wanted to find a restaurant, which they typed in New York City. The tester then proceeded to click on ‘Search’ button. Then they were taken to a results page with a lot of options. They used the same approach as the other 2 tasks and utilized the filtering to select ‘Bakery’ and then ‘Dietary Restrictions – Vegan’ and ‘Neighborhood – Central Park’, which yielded 0 results. The tester, having been to NYC before, therefore, she decided to modify the ‘Neighborhood’ filter and added ‘Midtown,’ which provided 4 results. The tester found an option that worked well ‘Tisseria’ and selected this as their option. The overall experience was a 4.5/10 per feedback from the tester. The main disappointment was receiving 0 results for Central Park, however, when Midtown was selected, an option appeared that was within walking distance of Central Park. The root cause is not obvious, but it does not appear to be related to user error. TripAdvisor IT support should investigate this matter as well, since it seems to provide inaccurate results.

Design Recommendations for TripAdvisor

            In regards to Task 1, the tester was confused with respects to the ‘Compare Prices (in new window)’ section, which provided a bunch of competitor sites and just opened new windows in the browser to their homepages. This did not add any value to the tester, since if they wanted to see multiple results from different sites, they can do that on their own. Additionally, this does not make much sense from a business sense, as it might impact revenue by sending traffic to competitors. As such, I would recommend removing this from the site.

            With regards to Task 2, this was extremely frustrating for the tester and did not give a very good impression. I could not determine the root cause; however, I recommend that IT Support troubleshoot to confirm if it is isolated in nature or if the SQL query or other enhancements are required to produce timely results.

            For Task 3, this was very unexpected, as the filtering seemed to be working well for other tasks, however, in this case, it yielded 0 results. I recommend that IT Support troubleshoot this issue to see if there is a bug in the coding. In addition, I recommend that they add a filter for ‘Zip Code’ or ‘Distance From’ instead of the neighborhoods, as many tourists might not know that Central Park is part of Midtown and would not get any results.

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GROUP ASSIGNMENT 2: USER SCENARIOS AND REPRESENTATIVE TASKS 

Group Name: Eager Explorers 

Group Members: Gina Gatti, Andrew Martin, Isabella Restrepo, Meagan Russell, Marinel Stancu, Paul Kwek 

Selected website: TripAdvisor 

We have selected TripAdvisor, which is a travel information and booking site. It provides information, reviews, and photos on hotels and transportation from user-generated content. Users can book lodging, transportation and make reservations at restaurants. In addition to travel accommodation, it also provides information on attractions and things to do on trips.  

User profile / persona created  

The user is a married 42-year-old mother from the Miami, Florida area. She is college educated with a bachelor’s in science in Marketing and serves as the Marketing Director at a midsize accounting firm. She is trying to plan a vacation for her family of 5 and wants to stay relatively close to the United States. She and her spouse have three children, a girl that is 12 and two boys that are 9 and 5 years old. The entire family has valid United States Passports and have traveled internationally in the past. This family goes on a trip annually, however, this year they are a bit more budget conscience, given the economic challenges with inflation. They are looking for good deals that will maximize their vacation without breaking the bank! The user has experience with other travel sites and is comfortable using technology in her daily life. 

Scenario developed  

For their trip next year, they wanted to go on a cruise. So, the mother is trying to check on TripAdvisor for a cruise that will match their budget ($400 per person) and availability. The user prefers leaving from a Miami port, however, would be open to leaving from another port in Florida if the price savings were significant. Additionally, since she has 3 children in school, the timing of the trip should not interfere with this program, and she would prefer not to travel in the Caribbean during the most active part of the hurricane season (e.g., September – October). 

Specific tasks developed 

* First task is to find a cruise when the kids are on break from school and taking in consideration of hurricane season and to stay within the vacation budget.  

We selected this task to assess how the user would address this task and what logical path they would take. We are curious to see how they would start their search, if it is by date, pricing, or both to see what they prioritize first.  

* Second task is to pick a cruise that stops in multiple ports. 

We selected this task to assess how the user would filter their search results by stops. The user could filter by “Cruise length” or they could select specific ports they would like to travel to. It also shows where it will be embarking from. Overall, it would show which approach is easiest or accommodating for the user in their search.  

 * Third task is to figure out what activities are offered at the different cruise stops. 

We selected this task to assess how the user would search for activities at the different cruise stops. We are curious to see if the user will search using the general search bar or click on the “Things to Do” search. The user could also explore the website and search based off interests (e.g., “Outdoors”, “Food and drink”, “Arts and culture”, “By the water”) which is a different search option. 

Word Count: 531

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Heuristic Evaluation – Individual Assignment # 2 (Tripadvisor)

  • Identified site to be evaluated: The site selected for the heuristic evaluation is Tripadvisor. This is one of the travel sites within our scope for the group project, as it is a leading site utilized by people searching for travel related topics.
  • Scenario to be evaluated: The situation selected was to find a highly rated restaurant in Houston, Texas that offers vegan and gluten-free options. The search will be within 25 miles of downtown Houston, however, I would expand the search up to 50 miles, if a vegan Tex-Mex option is available.  
  • Heuristic Evaluation for Tripadvisor: I started by clicking on the ‘Restaurants’ tab, which provided a search feature where I typed ‘downtown Houston.’ I was provided seven options, six of which were in Houston, TX. There was one results for Houston, Mississippi, which I believe violates Heuristic Principle # 2 – Match between system and the real world. The expectation is that all seven results would be in the downtown Houston, Texas and do not understand the logic of having an option appear in Mississippi, given that is very far from the desired location. Additionally, the ‘see all results for downtown Houston’ is placed all the way at the bottom of the results, which seems to be odd placement of this information. I then attempted to use ‘Houston, Texas’ in the search and I did not see any options for downtown, only ‘Houston’, ‘North Houston’, ‘South Houston’ and ‘Bay Area Houston’. I was surprised that the site did not have options for Downtown, Midtown or West Houston in the results, as these areas are far more popular than North or South Houston with tourists and locals alike.

When reviewing the results for restaurants in Houston, I did not see any filtering options on the web page. I checked on the Tripadvisor mobile application and could not find any advanced filtering options. The lack of ability to find anywhere on the page that could provide help or FAQs would violate Heuristic Principle # 10 – Help and documentation.

 I also tried to type in “vegan restaurants in downtown Houston” and did get options that seemed to be vegan based on their name, but there was no indicator to inform me whether a restaurant is vegan, had vegan options or other dietary restriction (e.g., gluten-free). This resulted in a very inefficient use of time, since I had to click on the individual restaurants to figure out if they were vegan or had vegan options on the menu. As such, I feel this violated the Heuristic Principle # 7 – Flexibility and efficiency of use, as it not allowing for an effective search on a specific need.

  • Recommendations for Tripadvisor: For the first issue identified, I would recommend that Tripadvisor add a filtering feature to allow searches within xx miles of a zip code / city or state. This would help target the search and avoid getting a result for Houston, Mississippi, when the desired results are for Houston, Texas. Another benefit is that the end user can ensure that the desired results are within a given proximity of where they are located and do not have to venture into an area of Houston that is significantly far from their current location. The mobile app does have the option to use GPS / Location Services, but not everyone is willing to have their location tracked, therefore, this is not the ideal way to solve the issue.

Additionally, they should move the ‘see all results for downtown Houston’ from the bottom of the results to above the first result provided. That way, the end user(s) have the option to view all of results, rather than the top recommended by Tripadvisor. This is most likely due to restaurants paying fees to be placed higher in the search results and not necessary being the best match for what is being asked.

Once the end user goes to the ‘all results’ page, there must be a better way to filter / sort through the results. I recommend adding an advance filter that allows for specific filters to be applied on type of cuisine, any dietary restriction (e.g., dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan, etc.), review score and price, as a few examples. If the location filter is applied, as recommended above, it would be beneficial to know the proximity of the establishment to your current location. This must be applied to both the mobile application and using the Tripadvisor site on a web browser. This will significantly improve the search features and produce meaningful results.

The last recommendation will be focused on a “Help or FAQ” section, where an end user can look for assistance to help them navigate the page or app, as well as provide guidance to refine search results. I currently could not find any such information and it was extremely frustrating to be provided 36 pages of results without any ability to find helpful ways to tailor the listing to what I was looking for.

Word Count – 811

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Group Topic Selection: Travel

1. The name of your group, and the names of your group members.

Group Name: Eager Explorers 

Group Members: 

Gina Gatti 

Paul Kwek 

Andrew Martin 

Isabella Restrepo 

Meagan Russell 

Marinel Stancu 

2. The type of site your group has selected, along with a short list of sample websites. 

Type of Site: Our group selected travel sites that recommend dining and places to go within different countries across the globe. Some examples of related websites would be TripAdvisor (https://www.tripadvisor.com), Yelp (https://www.yelp.com), Zomato (https://www.zomato.com), Hotels.com (https://www.hotels.com), and Kayak (https://www.kayak.com). If you are traveling internationally, there are those country-specific sites that offer dining and “places to go” tips. 

3. A brief statement explaining why your group is interested in this type of site — why does it appeal to you? why you think it would be useful to explore the usability of this kind of site? 

Justification for Site: The group finds this explicit theme interesting, as in many cases, we have traveled to a location that we have not explored yet and would need recommendations and guidance on the best and safest places to eat, venture, and explore. Some individuals have dietary restrictions and having information on restaurants that have vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options would be essential. Regarding safety, some locations pose a higher risk for tourists than others. Knowing which neighborhoods tend to have higher crime rates would be valuable information to keep travelers safe. Obtaining information on other people’s experiences with dining and local tourist attractions is also essential to planning respective trip itineraries. 

Exploring the usability of travel sites will help the end users navigate and find the desired information for a particular location. Travel sites need to have a very user-friendly interface and provide accurate results in a usable format. Since the demographics of the end users will vary, the travel sites need to be developed in a way that a novice user with a basic understanding of the web applications can use them. To easily populate required fields and be able to use advanced filtering to limit results by a set of criteria. Additional consideration should be given to providing information about COVID-19 restrictions (e.g., mask requirements and other local restrictions) that will be extremely important when traveling to novel places. 

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INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT # 1

Website and User:

CarGurus is an automotive research and shopping website that assists individuals / general public in comparing local listings for used and new cars, and contacting sellers. The company was founded in 2006 by Langley Steinert, a co-founder of TripAdvisor and has approximately 43 million website visits per month, with 95% of those views coming from individuals in the United States (per information found on similarweb).

The test user for this assignment is a female in her early 30s that is comfortable with using technology and does searches on the web frequently. She has never used CarGurus or any other automotive research / shopping website (e.g., AutoTrader / TrueCar), therefore, a true novice in this space.

URL: https://www.cargurus.com/

User Actions:

The tester utilized the CarGurus URL (https://www.cargurus.com/) on Google Chrome and was instructed to search for a vehicle of interest. The tester explored the landing page and the various tabs (Buy Used / Buy New / Certified Pre-Owned / SellMyCar / Financing). Some initial feedback was that the tester was confused by the ‘Financing’ tab, as it was a distraction from looking for a new vehicle. Additionally, the tester clicked on ‘Sell Your Car’ and was confused as to why they redirected to another page, not within expectations. The tester proceeded with the ‘Buy New’ tab and was able to successful select from the Make and Model dropdowns without issue. However, it was not clear to the tester what was meant by “Near Zip Code”. Further instructions were needed to clarify and it was recommended that CarGurus either have a pop-up with an explanation or change the verbiage to simply “Zip Code” to eliminate some of this confusion.

The tester then proceeded to populate all the required fields and proceeded by clicking on the “Search” button. The initial results provided only 2 vehicles within a 200-mile radius. The tester was NOT satisfied with these results and wanted to expand the search to Nationwide, which was done by utilizing the dropdown within the “Distance from Me” section. Some additional filters were used on the side of the “Results” page, such as color / fuel type (in this case a hybrid). The tester found a 2022 Lexus NX350h in red that she really liked. As such, the website did prove to the helpful overall!

Recommendations:

With regards to final thoughts, the tester rated CarGurus as a 7/10 for user experience and interface design. As she was not originally satisfied with 2 options within 200 miles and the fact that only stock photos were available for this model, she stated that she will look for other car buying sites (will search on Google to find different sites) to see if they can produce better results. Tester also did not like the pop-up for “Sell Your Car” while searching for a new car, which was a distraction and does not logically make sense in many cases, as the individual would be looking for car to buy not sell.

I visit CarGurus often and would be an “expert” with my level of comfort on the site. I would rate CarGurus as a 7.5/10, as I do like the fact that it tells you whether the price is “Good / Fair / Overpriced” for a particular vehicle you click on. This does not work very well for new cars in this current market, given the supply chain issues being experienced in the US. Additionally, I did note that the web version filtering differs, as it is on the side of the page, instead of a separate pop-up with the respective options to make for a cleaner design (on mobile devices). But both of us agree that the CarGurus website is overall effective and meets the needs of the user base.