Group Travel – Usability Analysis

December 4, 2022

Group Travel : Iteration 3b

Issue #1: The first issue that our users encountered when doing the task of searching for a cruise within the $400 price range was that the search result included a lot of “pricing for this itinerary is not available at this time” entries. It showed up in the search results after the “price range filter” was applied. We found that the issue was caused by how the sorting was set; it was defaulted to “best value”. This is a violation of Neilsen’s principle of consistency and standards because the term “best value” is subjective, unlike “best price,” which is universally understood. The results with the “best value” included unavailable cruises that weren’t aligned with what users wanted to see. As such, this violates Neilsen’s aesthetic and minimalistic design principles, which provided irrelevant information on cruises that were not available. This feature also violates Neilsen’s visibility of system status principle because even when the user adds a new filter, the search results are still sorted by the “best value” deals, which continue to show the unavailable cruises. This negatively impacted the user’s experience because it added no value to their search results. The default sorting made the results unclear to the user.

Recommendation: The first proposed solution is to provide the ability for end users to remove cruises that are unavailable. This can be accomplished by including a filter option to remove any cruises that are not available. The filter will be added on the left side of the page with a box that can be checked or unchecked. The filter gives the user control over the search results, allowing them to remove or keep cruises with “pricing for this itinerary is unavailable”.

Secondly, the default sorting by “best value” is hard to understand and should be removed. The default sorting should be logical and clearly related to the filter applied to the user’s search. If they are searching by price range, it should be sorted logically by price from the lowest to the highest value, or vice versa. It makes it easy for the user to understand what is going on if the sorting reflects the filter being applied. The criteria used for sorting should be transparent and allow the user to have more control over their results. To easily find the “sort by” option, it should be moved to the left side of the result page. For added benefit, this option should remain in place as the user scrolls through the results.

Issue # 2: Secondly, transparency of pricing was an issue noted by many of the users that we evaluated. The price originally presented was significantly less than the final price of the resort, activity, etc. This was frustrating for many of the users, who thought they had found a steal of a deal and wasted their time going through the booking process only to find the final price significantly higher than the initial quote. This violates Neilsen’s principle of visibility of system status because the actual price of the hotel is not what it is visible to the user. This also violates Neilsen’s principle of consistency and standards because the price shown in one page is different when transferred to the provider’s webpage.

After our design workshop in class, we decided to prioritize highlighting why TripAdvisor is a better website than its competitors from a different angle. Instead of changing the algorithm to better display other entities pricing, we shifted our focus to the following:

TripAdvisor Plus, a premium subscription service where users can save on hotels, entertainment, and get exclusive travel assistance. We are highlighting the financial advantages of using TripAdvisor plus.

TripAdvisor’s reviews are provided by other people who have been on these trips and are a prominent feature of the website. We decided to highlight that feature in all the booking applications/ features.

Issue # 3: With many competitors, TripAdvisor sets itself apart from them by offering better deals and providing context through user reviews. TripAdvisor’s value to its users over other sites like Expedia is TripAdvisor Plus.

Our proposed solutions include the following:

Highlight reviews of search results throughout the user’s entire booking process.

Make TripAdvisor Plus benefits visually available for users as they are planning their trip.

The differences between TripAdvisor Plus and TripAdvisor should be distinct, codified, and easily recognizable by the user. This can be done by replacing The TripAdvisor Plus icon at the top of the page with a logo that draws the end users’ attention.

Secondly, the TripAdvisor Plus prices should be presented in the search results with an icon that symbolizes discounts, a Piggy Bank with sunglasses. This will help users associate TripAdvisor Plus with deals and savings.

The TripAdvisor+ logo should be available in the search results to be promoted more. This logo should also replace the TripAdvisor Plus icon on the ribbon that is on the bottom of the page. This will have a more visual impact and maximize its exposure on the page.

Lastly, when a user hovers over the TripAdvisor Plus icons, a small box should pop-up with information on what TripAdvisor Plus offers, highlighting the benefits of the subscription. This will also include a blurb about a trial period of 90 days to encourage users to try it out.

November 15, 2022

Group 3 Assignment: Iterative design on TripAdvisor

First Issue

The first issue that our users encountered when doing the task of searching for a cruise within the $400 price range was that the search result included a lot of “pricing for this itinerary is not available at this time” entries. It showed up in the search results after the “price range filter” was applied. We found that the issue was caused by how the sorting was set; it was defaulted to “best value”. This is a violation of Neilsen’s principle of consistency and standards because the term “best value” is subjective, unlike “best price,” which is universally understood. The results with the “best value” included unavailable cruises that weren’t aligned with what users wanted to see. As such, this violates Neilsen’s aesthetic and minimalistic design principles, which provided irrelevant information on cruises that were not available. This feature also violates Neilsen’s visibility of system status principle because even when the user adds a new filter, the search results are still sorted by the “best value” deals, which continue to show the unavailable cruises. This negatively impacted the user’s experience because it added no value to their search results. The default sorting made the results unclear to the user.

Search result with unavailable cruises — First Issue – Unavailable Cruise Search Result

Recommendations

The first proposed solution is to provide the ability for end users to remove cruises that are unavailable. This can be accomplished by including a filter option to remove any cruises that are not available. The filter will be added on the left side of the page with a box that can be checked or unchecked. The filter gives the user control over the search results, allowing them to remove or keep cruises with “pricing for this itinerary is unavailable”.

Second Issue

Secondly, transparency of pricing was an issue noted by many of the users that we evaluated. The price originally presented was significantly less than the final price of the resort, activity, etc. This was frustrating for many of the users, who thought they had found a steal of a deal and wasted their time going through the booking process only to find the final price significantly higher than the initial quote. This violates Neilsen’s principle of visibility of system status because the actual price of the hotel is not what it is visible to the user. This also violates Neilsen’s principle of consistency and standards because the price shown in one page is different when transferred to the provider’s webpage.

Recommendations

There should be transparency regarding pricing. During browsing, it needs to show the actual price including taxes before getting to the end of the page. Our recommendation is to have a “True Price” feature that includes all fees, taxes, etc. up front. The proposed transparency enhances trust, ease of use, and a less stressful experience for the user. By reducing the stress of the booking process, we’re confident we’ll have more return customers. By adding the “True Price” to every single feature advertised on TripAdvisor, we further enhance the consistency and standards of the website design.

November 12, 2022

Individual Assignment #3 – Representative User Test

The Website

The website our group chose to use in our testing is Tripadvisor. Tripadvisor is a travel website where users can plan out their trip(s) and book all travel-related services. Users can search for hotels, vacation rentals, restaurants, cruises, flights, and more. The website also acts as a travel blog and posts different articles related to travel and specific destinations. Tripadvisor is a unique travel website because it allows users to look at different activities, restaurants, places, etc. and it links to the booking sites so you can accomplish all travel tasks from one website.

The User

When searching for a user for this test I tried to stick as closely to our group tester’s characteristics as possible. Our group had created a user who was 42 years old, female, with three children under the age of twelve living in the Miami metropolitan area.

The user I chose to test in this scenario was a 51-year-old female with three adult children in their mid-twenties. This user lives in South Florida and has lived there her entire life. The user has worked in retail for the past 15 years and does not have the strongest computer literacy. This user has been on a few cruises but has not used Tripadvisor to book or plan any trip before.

For this testing scenario, the user will be booking a cruise for four (herself and her three children) for the week of Thanksgiving since they all will be off work. The budget for the trip is a maximum of $500 per person and for a medium length trip (3-5 days). The destination is flexible as long as it is somewhere in the Carribean. The user would also like to part take in one excursion at one of the ports.

The User Testing Method

The testing method I chose to use was the “Think Aloud” approach. I was unable to accomplish this testing in person so I completed this assignment via FaceTime. Since I was unable to be physically present in the same room as the user it created some obstacles that would not be present if this testing took place in person. For instance, I was unable to see how the user tracked their mouse across the webpage which could be useful in how the user interacts with the website. For the tasks, I had the user talk aloud about what she was was doing and any thoughts or opinions she had while she completed each task.

The Tasks

The user was relatively similar to the group user we had created so only one of the tasks had to be modified. The original tasks were as followed:

Original Task 1: 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.

Original Task 2: Pick a cruise that stops in multiple ports.

Original Task 3: Find activities offered in each port stop.

The tasks I chose to test for this user are very similar but there are slight modifications.

Task 1: Find a cruise during Thanksgiving break that goes to the Carribean and stay within the vacation budget of a maximum of $500 per person.

For this task I had my user start on the Tripadvisor homepage. I had the user say out loud what she was doing and I copied exactly what she did so I could provide the screenshots below. The first thing the user did was to type “Caribean cruise” into the search bar located on the homepage. This returned a result of cruises, sailing, and water tours that take place in the Caribean but not a cruise to the Carribean. The user was confused about this result when it popped up.

Cruises, Sailing & Water Tours in Caribbean results webpage

The next thing the user did was to search this results page to see if there was a link anywhere that would take her to the ‘cruise’ page she was expecting. After, exploring the page the user noticed a link to ‘Cruises’ in the navigation bar and she clicked on that to take her to that webpage.

The user clicked search on the above webpage which returned a bunch of cruise results for the Caribbean during the month of November. The user explored the page by scrolling up and down the page. That is where she found she could put in her maximum budget to filter the results for the cruises.

After she filtered the result I told her to pause what she was doing and told her we would be moving onto the second task.

Task 2: Find a midlength cruise that is around 3-5 days (this length of cruise will stop in at least one port).

I had the user complete this task on the webpage she was already on since that seemed to be the logical way to filter down the results instead of starting from scratch. The user had explored the webpage previously so she found the ‘Cruise length’ filter rather quickly and without any problems.

Task 3: Find an excursion or activity to participate in at one of the ports

For the third task the user had to find an excursion/activity to participate in. The first thing the user did was to scroll down the page to see if there was an option regarding any excursions or activites. The user did not find anything this way so she continued back to the top of the page. From there she noticed the ‘Things to do’ link at the top of the webpage. She decided to click on that so she could explore that page. From there it took her to the wbpage with different things to do in the Caribbean. She then compared the attractions to the cruise ports.

Recommendations

I asked my user at the end of the testing what she would change about the website if she could. The first thing she recommended was that when searching “cruise Caribbean” that it returned more options that just cruises you can take from the Caribbean. For instance, return those results and also a section for regular cruises to the Caribbean. The second recommendation the user had was when searching for a cruise it would be nice to search by week instead of being forced to search for the whole month. Another recommendation would be to have an option for the excursions/activities located on the same page or highlighted that it exists somewhere on the cruise results page.

November 4, 2022

Individual Assignment 3: Representative User Test

Website

The website my team has selected to do our user testing on is TripAdvisor, which is a travel information site that offers information and booking assistance on transportation, lodging, and entertainment for vacations.

User Characteristics

The user is a man in his 70’s with a wife and three children, all over the age of 30. He is savvy when it comes to electronics but takes longer to navigate websites. He spends less time intuitively navigating sites and more reading all the text on the page.

Testing Method

We used the think aloud testing method as we had to do the test through Zoom. My user was able to share their screen with me and verbalize their thought process as they navigated the site. By thinking out loud I was also able to note what they paid attention to on the page even if they didn’t select certain buttons.

Tasks

I provided context for the user and relayed the scenario my team drafted up where their goal is to select a cruise that fits the budget of $400 per person for their family of five that departs from Florida.

The three tasks my group drafted were:

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.
Pick a cruise that stops in multiple ports.
Figure out what activities are offered at the different cruise stops.

My user was able to address the first and third. However, the user couldn’t explore the second task because they already found a cruise that fit their budget and schedule. By default, the cruise was already going to stop in multiple ports. I omitted this task as most of the time spent was on the first task and we had a time limit.

Task 1

For the first task, the user went straight to the ‘Where to?’ search bar. They started to type in ‘cruise’ and was given a list of suggestions to autofill the search. They selected the first option ‘cruises & sailing’. They got a pop up about sharing their location, but they ignored it and typed in ‘cruises & sailing near Miami’.

This only provided results for local activities in Miami, so the user refined the search to ‘Sailing & Cruises Caribbean’. The user made three other attempts at nomenclature to get any search results of cruises including: ‘cruises & sailing port’, ‘cruises & sailing Fort Lauderdale’, and finally just plain ‘cruises’.

For this last search the user was finally brought to the official cruise information page. On this page, they had difficulty finding information on the ports and where to depart from. They browsed through the destination options, which still did not provide information on departure locations.

The user then selected the 6-9 days option and was happy to see their first detailed list of cruise lines. This page had a list of cruises and, in small font, information of length, destination, and departure port.

The user selected a Norwegian Cruise that had a price per person within the budget and departed from Port Canaveral. When they selected the ‘book now’ button they were brought to the official Norwegian Cruises site. Here, they were first presented with a calendar to select the departure date. This is when they realized that the price for the specific date they wanted (that was on TripAdvisor) went up and the rest of the options on the calendar were too pricey. They then went back to TripAdvisor to look at other options and ended up selecting a cruise that was $200 per person, which is significantly lower than the $400 per person budget.

Just as before, they were brought to the Norwegian Cruise line site. Again, they were given a variety of pricing that didn’t match what they originally saw. They looked at the calendar and decided to click into a cruise that was around Thanksgiving for $441 per person. It turned out that this cruise came with terms and conditions where the third and fourth guests are free. Therefore, the user will pay for three guests at $441 per person (Guest one, two and five) which means their family of five would cost approximately $264 per person.

Norwegian Cruise Website User was redirected to

The user then remembered that the cruise would need to accommodate their three kids, so they went back to TripAdvisor and in the search, bar typed in the Norwegian Cruise ship, Norwegian Bliss. Even though the results showed different dates and destinations from the one they chose, the user assumed that the Norwegian Bliss was the same across the board. They then scrolled down to where the amenities are listed. They found that the cruise offers a kid’s aqua park, splash academy, game shows, laser tag, a video arcade, and a movie theatre. This is enough information for the user and they were sold.

Task 3

For the third task, the user was asked to figure out what activities were offered at the different cruise stops. For this they searched for each destination in the search bar. The results had a list of activities and a price point for each. The user scrolled through the list and rationalized that they could probably do the more expensive activities since they are saving a significant amount of money on the actual cruise tickets.

Analysis

What I learned from this process is that the user didn’t select the filters. They depended more on the search bar and liked scrolling through the results and weighing their options there. They were given the most useful information when they searched for the broadest term ‘cruises’. Because of this, I can see why they wouldn’t want to mess with filters since they know it could point them in the wrong direction just as the autofill ‘cruises & sailing’ did.

The most frustrating thing the user faced was finding out the information on TripAdvisor was false or came with terms and conditions and they only found this out by going to the actual Norwegian Cruise website. They became less trusting of information from TripAdvisor. I think this is because TripAdvisor’s results behaved more like advertisements and less of an information tool. The search results only provided the most appealing cruises but somehow were least accommodating to the user. It was obvious that TripAdvisors’ goal was to get users to go to the Norwegian Cruise website from TripAdvisor and sort out the details there.

Design Improvement

I discovered that you could view different prices and cruise dates if you click on the date of a search result. From there, you can scroll through the different date options and when a new date is selected the price is updated. This means that TripAdvisor has information on how pricing changes based on dates and should offer this upfront. They can show it in a calendar view, like Norwegian Cruise, for users to better visualize their options. They shouldn’t have users jump back and forth between TripAdvisor and the actual booking site to compare different dates, prices, and availability.

Useful information that TripAdvisor doesn’t showcase

The most frustrating obstacle was starting a search for ‘cruises’ and being recommended to search ‘cruises & sailing’ which according to TripAdvisor is a category for aquatic-related activities. To improve this, they may need to reconsider the jargon and categorization of activities that users would search by.

Could be replaced with more useful information to book a cruise

My last design recommendation is to replace the information near the top of the cruise page with more vital details of trip planning. In the above example, the ‘Explore Ship-itinerary pages’ only brings the user to the bottom of the page to a drop-down list of cruises. I don’t think a user would want to write a cruise review first-thing when they are looking to plan a trip. Lastly, ‘The lowest cruise prices’ isn’t hyper-linked. These are the first things you see on the cruise page, yet these points take up a lot of space without helping much. These parts can be replaced with starting points of a user’s search such as departure ports, specific dates, and pricing options. It should allow the user to be more in control of their search instead of a target for advertisements.

November 1, 2022

Individual Assignment #3: Representative User Test

Website: Trip Advisor

My group 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 most popularly provides information on attractions and things to do on trips.

The User

The user I have chosen for this scenario is a 29 year old woman who is currently 6 months pregnant. She is married to a service member and has moved 3 times in the last three years. She currently lives in the Raleigh-Durham area, however, travels frequently throughout the east coast to visit her family members. She has an undergraduate degree in biology and a doctorate of pharmacy from the University of Georgia. She loves to travel to tropical and adventurous destinations and has done so over four times this year. She wants to go on one final baby moon before it’s no longer safe for her to travel while pregnant. She wants to go to tropical location that is safe, luxurious, all-inclusive, and provides a “good” deal. She has used Trip advisor in the past to search for activity and destination reviews.

User Testing Method

The moderating technique I chose to utilize is the concurrent think aloud method. This method is designed to understand what the user is thinking as they interact with the website and talk aloud as they work through each one of the specified tasks. I chose this method because it encouraged my user to constantly think through every step/ process for each task and provided me with the most feedback possible.

User Tasks

a. The user’s first task is to identify the best all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean that she will be able to stay in within the next two months. She wants to identify a luxurious resort for her and her companion to stay at for five nights. They have a total travel budget of $6,000. I altered our group’s first task to fit the profile of my specific user, however maintains the same premise of selecting a location with a specific time range.

b. The user’s second task is to find flights that accommodate her designated hotel dates. She prefers to fly with Delta airlines because she can use her mileage points, however isn’t dead set on Delta airlines. While this task differs from my group’s task #2, it shares a similar intent of having a user select a specific travel method and use the time ranges to find the best deals.

c. The user’s third task is to identify three main attractions she will want to visit/ partake in either on or off the resort throughout the duration of her visit. This task mirrors my group’s task #3, which is to find different activities throughout the trip.

User Trial

My user immediately took to google and searched “best all-inclusive resorts- trip advisor”. The second link that popped up was, “The 10 BEST all inclusive Caribbean resorts- trip advisor.” She followed that link and immediately went to filter the dates to find reasonable prices within the time frame allotted by the task.

Upon selecting the dates she took to the filters to narrow down exactly what she was looking for. Knowing she has a strong budget and wanting to spend most of it on the resort, she selected all-inclusive, resorts, and hotel class 4/5 stars. After scrolling through ten or so resorts she found the one she liked the most based on the photos and reviews. Time to book it, but how? Knowing her second task she wanted some sort of package deal. After searching for about ten minutes the only link she could find was the one through the hotel. During those ten minutes I recorded her saying, “where do I book, i’m so confused by these prices, Trip advisor is the worst.” She gave up and booked through the resort website.

For the second task my user started on the trip advisor website, clicked on flights, selected RDU-PUJ, round trip, non-stop, 2x people, and search! Within a minute she had dozens of selections within her price range, but wait 11-hour layovers? She began sorting the selections by, “best value and duration,” which is where she started having issues. When she would attempt to remove some filters trip advisor would change her origin location. She started to feel defeated once that started to happen. As a 6-month pregnant woman her patience is already thin and trip advisor wasn’t making life easy. The comment, “this is why I use expedia” slipped out at this point and she gave up and went with the 11 hour flight (should only be 4 hours.)

The third and final task! My user thought this would be the easy portion, being Trip advisors bread and butter. She went to the trip advisor website, selected “things to do”, typed in Punta Cana, and let the search begin. She was immediately overwhelmed and this time there was no filter section to narrow down the choices. She backed out of the website, went to google, and searched, “Top things to do Punta Cana- Trip advisor,” which is where she found the top ten link (which really ended up being the top 30). After ten minutes of scrolling through the reviews and pictures, her decisions were made! The trip was complete. For this being a hypothetical trip, my user was exhausted.

Recommendations:

If Trip advisor truly wants to be competitive in the destination booking sphere they need to step their game up. Everyone wants steals and deals when they’re traveling and those usually come in the form of package prices. Trip advisor has a packages section, however the user has to dig. My user never found it, however having clicked on it on her behalf there were no deals offered for that time and location. Not true! When I did the same thing on Expedia I found plenty of deals. Trip advisor needs to instill confidence in the user that they’re getting the best deal possible, which clearly wasn’t the case in this scenario. The need to relook their “best deal” algorithm and highlight the package feature in their top display area.

The second feature my user had issues with was the filters. For some of the pages, ie the top ten things to do, there weren’t any additional filters she could select. I understand Trip advisor has created this pre-determined list, however let the user go as deep as they possibly can. By doing so, the site instills confidence that they’re making the best possible decision.

Word count: 1305

November 1, 2022

Individual Assignment 3: Representative User Test

Identify Website: Trip Advisor

The site for testing our group chose is Trip Advisor. Trip Advisor is a travel information and booking site that helps many users book their vacations and find accommodations. On the site, you can view hotels, flights restaurants, vacation rentals, things to do, rental cars, etc. This site is definitely used more to view different activities and sites to see on vacation rather than booking due to competitors such as Booking.com.

Tester Characteristics:

I could not find a direct match to our group’s tester characteristic of a 42-year-old female with three children in the Miami area; however, I did find a close enough match.

This tester is a 45-year-old female married with two children in college. The user is from the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area and is a very avid traveler. For work, she is an accountant for a doctor’s office and has been an accountant for over 10 years. With her birthday coming up she wants to travel to Spain for the first time. For this trip, it will be a family of 4 total for the whole trip. The user is very used to dealing with travel sites and enjoys them, but never books through them regularly. The user is looking to travel from Miami, FL on Friday, February 17th, and looking to be back on Sunday, February 26. The coming back is a hard set date that cannot be changed, but the flight for going can be semi-flexible but it will only be able to be on either Thursday, the 16th, or Friday, the 17th. She does not have any preferences on where to stay, but she would like a decent hotel with decent pricing. She does have recommendations from friends that have gone to Spain, so she will not be going completely blind, but it still will be the family’s first time traveling to Europe. The user would love to see different activities that the family can do and food options. One of her children is a bit selective of meals, so being able to view the menu beforehand in the different areas will help tremendously. The user is not the best in technology usage but has navigated through many travel sites before.

User Tester Method:

This testing was done using the Thinking Aloud approach. As I sat with the user, I watched what she did and told her to speak out loud about anything that comes to mind. With every step, I screenshotted and wrote down what was said about each step the user took. It was much easier being in the same room as the user since I could see the movements they would make. I observed their eyes, hands, and what reaction they would have when switching pages and reading about each entity.

Modification to Assigned Tasks:

Given the different scenarios for the user we created and this user, we had to modify a few of the tasks, but they will have overall the same objective. You will see below the original group task and the modified task.

Group Task 1: 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.

Modified Task 1: Find a flight round trip from Miami, FL to Madrid, Spain. User is open on budget, but would prefer a cheaper option if possible. The flight is preferred to be direct rather than layovers.

Group Task 2: Pick a cruise that stops in multiple ports.

Modified Task 2: Find transportation from Madrid to Barcelona, Barcelona to Valencia, and Valencia to Madrid.

Group Task 3: Find activities offered in each port stop.

Modified Task 3: Find hotels near Madrid (Feb. 18- 21), Barcelona (Feb. 21-23), and Valencia(Feb. 23- 26).

Group Task 4: N/A

Modified Task 4: Find activities/ excursion in each city.

Task Analysis:

Task 1: Find a flight round trip from Miami, FL to Madrid, Spain. User is open on budget, but would prefer a cheaper option if possible. The flight is preferred to be direct rather than layovers.

Once on the page, the user took about 30 seconds to just look over the page and see what was on it. They clicked on the “Where to” on the homepage and searched up Madrid, Spain. There was a drop down menu that showed up, but nothing of flights. The user was confused, and they tried to search up in other ways, such as “Spain”, “Flights to Madrid”, and nothing came up (Figure 1.1).

They exited out of the search and clicked on the “More” option on the homepage. The user thought aloud and wondered why a travel site did not have the flights option at least showing on the homepage. It took the user to a different Trip Advisor webpage where it shows flight information. A nice touch the user saw was when inputting the flight information, there was an option to also see compared prices with other travel sites such as Kayak, Cheap Flights, Wowfare, etc (Figure 1.2).

The results after searching up the depart for Friday, February 17 (Figure 1.3).

User decided to choose the first option to be able to land in Madrid, Spain by 7:45 am on Saturday, February 18. The user was also able to click the “View Deal” option and it showed her the full flight information with the exact times (Figure 1.4).

Task 2: Find transportation from Madrid to Barcelona, Barcelona to Valencia, and Valencia to Madrid.

The user is going to be traveling within Spain so she needs to find transportation for all the cities they will be visiting. The user saw the option of multi-city in the flights area so they inputted all the cities and dates. The user did not like how you can only put up to 4 cities that you want to travel (Figure 2.1).

The user had to write down the first flight since they were planning on staying in Madrid a few days. It worked out on her end after she realized she didn’t need the original flight, but she does believe it would be better with more flights just fro travel purposes. Once the user inputted all the flights and clicked the search button, only two flights showed up (Figure 2.2).

Task 3: Find hotels near Madrid (Feb. 18- 21), Barcelona (Feb. 21-23), and Valencia(Feb. 23- 26).

With every city the user visits, they need a hotel to stay in. The user is looking for a safe and comfortable place to be in while they are visiting Spain. Sinc etehy ar enot planning to be in the hotel until nighttime to sleep, the most precious and expensive hotel is not needed. The user clicked on the “Hotels” option they had was set up the same way as the flights. The user scanned the options you can use to filter out the choices, but decided to just view everything first before trying to narrow down on hotels. After viewing all the options, the user decided the most important options were free WIFI and free breakfast. One thing the user noticed was that it would take them to Booking.com,when viewing the hotel deals (Figure 3.1).

Task 4: Find activities/ excursion in each city.

After looking at the hotels, flights, and each city, the user wanted to look at what activities and site seeing places were near the hotel/city. The user is very big on adventure so this was very important to view them beforehand and see reviews. The user thought it was nice that in each city there was a drop down menu of different topics right off the bat (Figure 4.1).

The user clicked on “Things to Do in Barcelona” and a whole page of things popped up. They had it organized in different types of tours, what time of day, and the most popular. The user enjoyed how you can also view the standard price before you click on the activity (Figure 4.2).

Reccomendations

After al the tasks, I had the user tell me what recommendations they would want if they could change the site. The first one was to fix the main homepage drop downs. As seen in task 1, the site has a search button but when you search up flights it does not go through. The flights option was in the “More” tab. If the main options such as hotel, flights, things to do, and packages were the main feature of the webpage it would make much more sense. Users come to this travel site to view everything surrounding travel, and flights are a huge aspect of travel.

The next recommendation was that theuser would want more option when trying to book multi-city flights. It was snot a big problem for her, but for some users that needs to book multiple flights it would work out much better. There could be certain layovers that a user wants to have for a certain amount of days, and not having the actual opportunity to input them all loses time and user will go to other sites instead.

Word Count: 1530

November 1, 2022November 1, 2022

Individual Assignment 3: Representative User Test

The Site

The website that my group selected is TripAdvisor. It is a travel website that helps people plan and book their vacations. It guides you to find the best places to eat, stay, fly, what to do, rent vehicles, and find a cruise based on the reviews of those who have been there before.

My User

My user is a 42-year-old mom with 3 kids. She has been on a lot of cruises but never used TripAdvisor to search for a cruise. I could say she is an expert at navigating websites that involve shopping and vacations.

Test Method

I used the “think aloud” method. I gave her one task at a time, had her verbalize her thoughts, and had her start from the TripAdvisor home page for each task, which is a total of three tasks. I recorded the whole screen, including mouse clicks and her verbalization. I chose this method because it is easy to follow what she is trying to do.

Description of Tasks

The first task that I gave her was to find a cruise for her family of five that was priced at around $400 per person. The cruise needs to originate in the Miami or Port Canaveral area. It must be when the kids have no school and not hurricane season. I used some of the questions that the group chose for the second task because I think those options can make the first task easier to attain. On my experience, those options are usually in the filter on the search result page.

The second task was to find a cruise that has multiple stops. Multiple stops mean it will be a longer cruise, so, she had to make sure that the price was within her budget (the more stops, the more expensive the cruise gets). After finding a cruise with several port stops, the third task was to figure out what activities are offered at the different places where the ships will port. For this task, I asked her to use a different approach rather than using the search bar.

First Task: Find a Cruise

The user was asked to go to TripAdvisor and complete the first task that she was given. The first thing she did when she landed on the site was go to the search bar and search for “cruises”. The search bar is very visible, and it looks like it is the highlight of the page. This took her to the “Cruise” tab of the website. From there, she directly goes to the search tab and clicks on the “Where to” drop-down. Using her experience, she picked the cruise location that looked appropriate for the price limit. She was debating between “Caribbean” and “Bahamas” and picked the latter. Then she went to the drop-down menu of the “Departure Month” and picked December since she knows that the hurricane season is between June and November and the kids have no school in that month. Then she was presented with the results. She narrowed down the results by clicking on the filter on the left-side of the screen. She first limited her search to cruises departing from Miami, and then she selected the cruise that fit her budget. Then she was taken to a new page (still on TripAdvisor) where she could change the date, see pictures of the ship, and see the cruise deals. She clicked on the pictures first, then went back to the previous page and clicked on one of the deals. She was sent to the partner page (the site was showing a very good indication of where she was taken) where she had the option to book the cruise.

She did not encounter any problems with this task. She went through it flawlessly. She knew what she was doing and where to go. She even predicted that she would be taken to a partner website because TripAdvisor doesn’t book cruises.

Second Task: Multiple Port Stops

From where she was at, I had her go back to the TripAdvisor home page and do the second task. She was lost for a little bit because the current tab was the partner site and not TripAdvisor. She had to close Firefox and reopen it to get her way back to the TripAdvisor home page. When she opened the webpage, she did the same search. When she arrived at the result page, she filtered it with the price range of $79-$450. Then she started browsing each cruise that has two port stops. By clicking on “Ports,” she was able to view the cruise schedule, which includes the port stops. This is tricky because there weren’t a lot of cruise results for the price filter that she added. Most of the cruises were unavailable. At the top of the right-side of the first hit result was a “sort by” drop-down menu. She changed it from “Best Value” to “Price”. That is when she was able to browse the results seamlessly.

The problem she encountered on this task was that there were a lot of unavailable cruises that were showing after the price filter was applied. She had that problem because the sorting was automatically set to the best deal, which, unfortunately, the deals were not available. This is a violation of Neilsen’s aesthetic and minimalistic design principle because, after the filter was applied, the site showed very few available cruises and a lot of unavailable and irrelevant ones. It also violates Neilsen’s visibility of system status principle because the “sort by” was not very visible, and who would have thought that the reason why there were not many good results after filtering was because of the sorting?

Third Task: Port Activities

After finding a cruise with multiple ports, I had her go back to the TripAdvisor home page and do the third task without using the search bar. She started to look at the buttons at the top of the search. She scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page, then scrolled back up and clicked on the button with “….”, which reveals more buttons. She found the “Cruise” button and it took her to the cruise page. She scrolled down the page and looked for a link for an excursion. When she couldn’t find an excursion page, she scrolled back to the top of the page and filled in the drop-down menus with the same information used in tasks one and two. When she arrived on the result page, she picked the appropriate cruise and clicked on the “View Deal,” which took her to the partner website. On that webpage, there was an “Itinerary” page for that specific cruise. That is where she was able to find the excursions for each port that the ship stopped at.

She was having a problem looking for an excursion page because she did not see the “To Do” section of the home page of the site. Instead, she looked for it on the partner’s site. This is a violation of Neilsen’s consistency and standards because if the button link for the “To Do” on the “cruise” page was the same as the home page, it would have been easy to spot. They also changed it to “things to do” and it is hardly visible when you are in the “cruise” page. It also took her awhile to find the “Cruise” link button because it was not visible but under the “….” button. This is a violation of Neilsen’s visibility of system status principle because the link to get to the cruise page is hidden.

Recommendations

For the usability problems when performing the second task, my first recommendation is to remove the unavailable cruises from the search results (especially for the filtered results). By doing so, this would have made her search simple, easy, and more effective by spending more time on relevant information.

After filtering a search result, users directly scan the results without thinking about sorting them first. My second recommendation is that the “sort by” should be more visible and easier to spot so that users will know that there are more relevant cruises at the bottom of the page or somewhere on the other tabs if you change the sorting. Also, since the filter applied was on prices, the sorting should have been on prices too, not best value all the time. This would have saved the user time and made her more efficient in her search by looking at the relevant results.

For the usability problems of the third task, my first recommendation is to have a button for “cruise” on the home page instead of hiding it in “….”. This could have saved the user time from looking for the cruise link and more time to do a cruise search.

My second recommendation is to have the “To Do” button on all pages and don’t change the way it is presented. The user would have used this button when she was on the “Cruise” page because she would see it as related to her search. This would have saved her time from going to the partners’ webpage and searching for it there.

October 31, 2022

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 19^th 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.

Word Count: 1631

October 17, 2022

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

October 13, 2022

Individual Assignment #2 – Heuristic Evaluation

The Website

The website I selected for this assignment was atlasobscura.com. The website’s tagline is “The definitive guide to the world’s hidden wonders.” and users can search for destinations, experiences, food to try, and read stories about different places. The website features destinations that are popular as well as some out-of-the-box destinations/experiences.

The Scenario

The scenario I chose to evaluate for this website is that I am visiting New Orleans and I want to plan out what attractions to go to. For the scenario, I do not have any food restrictions/allergies and everyone is over 21 years old. Nielsen’s 10 heuristics will be used in the evaluation of this website.

To begin the scenario I decided to search New Orleans in the search bar located on the home page. As I was typing, the search was continuously updated as I typed. For instance, when I had typed out “new” before “Orleans” it recommended destination guides for New York State, New York City, etc., it recommended places such as The New Orleans Treehouse and the New Yorker Hotel, and even a story about New Zealand.

As I finished typing out “new orleans” the search results pulled together the results for information related to New Orleans. The results were broken down into different categories including “Destination Guides”, “Trips”, “Places”, “Food & Drink”, and “Stories”.

Instead of clicking any result listed in the search I just hit the enter button which led to “The Atlas Obscura Guide to New Orleans” which I believe is the same page as the “New Orleans, Louisiana” result that showed up under “Destination Guides”. This page had been recently updated in July of 2022 and featured quick links (“Attractions”, “Food & Drink”, “Map”, “Leaderboards”, “Stories”, and “Lists”) that would take you to that part of the page when clicked.

The Atlas Obscura Guide to New Orleans front page

The first task was to pick out 2-3 attractions to visit while in the city. I was able to click a button under the “Unusual Attractions in New Orleans” section that led to another webpage which listed all the places in New Orleans that were added to the website. From that webpage I browsed the different options and settled on three different places to visit (Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, and New Orleans Pharmacy Museum).

I clicked on one of the attractions I wanted to visit and it took me to a webpage dedicated to that attraction. On this webpage it gave a quick description of what the attraction was, a map of the location and the address, as well as a link to the website and nearby attractions.

Usability Flaws

While working through this scenario the overall process was relatively easy but some issues were present. When searching for “New Orleans” in the search bar it was constantly updating to try to find the best match based off each individual key stroke. This led to an overload of information that was constantly changing which is a violation of Nielsen’s 8th heuristic. Another violation occured when I clicked on “Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop”. This led me to a new webpage dedicated to this attraction but did not provide a back button (which can be seen in the “All places in New Orleans” screenshot). This violates Nielsen’s 3rd heuristic.

Recommendations

Overall, this website was easy to use and was formatted and designed in a way that made sense as a user. I also acknowledge that I am not a novice when it comes to using computers, the internet, and searching webpages. One of the first recommendations I have is to not have the search automatically update results with every keystroke. I know that this is what is used in most search engines but I think for this specific site it makes sense to wait until the user is done typing their search term so they do not get overwhelmed with unrelated results. Another recommendation I have is to create a back link that would take you from an attractions webpage back to the webpage with all of the attractions. This could be a link just like the one seen on the “All places in New Orelans” webpage that is in the left hand corner of the screen (“BACK TO NEW ORLEANS”) but with the wording “BACK TO ALL PLACES IN NEW ORLEANS”. This would provide the user with an easier way to get back to the previous page.