Category: User Scenarios and Representative Tasks

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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

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.  

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.

Hotel Booking Site

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.  

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.)

Flight Portal

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.

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

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INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 3: REPRESENTATIVE USER TEST

The Website

The website being chosen for evaluation is called IGN, formerly known as Imagine Games Network. IGN Entertainment is a multimedia review aggregation site. The website also hosts interviews with titans of the game and film industries such as Sony and Microsoft, along with also streaming award ceremonies for these mediums as well. The website is also home to walkthroughs, game rankings, and articles about video games, movies, tv shows, and anime. Users can also purchase official merch from several of their favorite intellectual properties through the IGN Store. IGN is one of the most highly regarded “go to” sites for fans of games and other creative mediums.

Persona:

The persona that our gaming group chose to focus on for this task is a 17 to 23 year old gamer who enjoys playing games from many different genres of games, that range from role-playing games or RPGs, first-person shooters or FPS’, and multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBAs, puzzle games, action adventures, massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, or MMORPGs and survival/horror. These individuals are part of the middle class, attend some type of school (high-school, college, or trade) and have at least a part-time job or receive some form of monetary allowance to give them the means to purchase video games. Their experience level with gaming ranges from beginner to expert since IGN has a wide variety of content available ranging from reviews to comprehensive walkthroughs.

User:

The user is a single mother in her 50s. She is a librarian and has little to no experience with console video games and has never used IGN Entertainment’s website.

Tasks:

  • We chose the specific task of accessing the Game of the Year awards for 2021 because the user is particularly interested in what’s trending in the gaming world. This user does not have a specific genre in mind for the games they would like beyond Legend of Zelda.  
  • Find a walkthrough for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to get an idea of how long the adventure will take to complete. With today’s top games at almost $60 each, many gamers do not want a game they can complete in a few hours. Gamers like to feel that they are getting their money’s worth. 
  • Look for reviews of the other Game of the Year contenders and see if any of their reviews are intriguing enough to warrant purchasing a different game.  

Test:

I sat down with my user and had her pull up the IGN Entertainment website. I outlined the three tasks listed above and explained that I was just looking for her to try to complete them to the best of her ability and encouraged her to talk through her thought process as well. The first task given to her was to access the article detailing the Game of the Year for 2021. Initially she tried the Rewards tab on the main page.

When that failed to produce the desired result, she attempted to find it by clicking on the News tab. This also did not provide the desired result and the user started to become frustrated with the website’s lack of clear direction. Technically the information the user was looking for would be under the News tab, but there is no simple way for users to sort through IGN’s massive collection of articles to find a specific one.

The next thing the user did was to look for a search feature. She clicked on the magnifying glass below the tabs, and was frustrated to find out that the search feature only allows you to search for video games specifically and not more generic search queries. A proper site search feature would go a long way here to operate in line with Nielsen heuristic: match between system and real world. At this point, the user gave up on this task and asked to move on to the next task on the list.

The next task was to locate a walkthrough for the video game Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. She was able to complete this task far easier than the previous task by clicking on the Guides tab and scrolling down to All Guides and selecting Most Popular.

The third task proved just as fruitless as the first because we ran into the exact same problem of being unable to locate the article that held the list of Game of the Year 2021 entries.

Analysis:

Due to the obstacles faced by the user in completing the first and third task, I came to the conclusion that expanding the limited search function available on the main page to enable users to search not just for video games but for the articles written by IGN Staff as well would be a considerable improvement in site navigability and user experience. Adding a feature to the News tab to enable article searching or article sorting by author, or keywords, or even adding a specific section for games of the year would solve all of the obstacles faced by the user performing this usability test. If these changes had been implemented the user would have had little to no trouble locating the information they were seeking despite being a complete novice of the website.

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GROUP ASSIGNMENT 2: USER SCENARIOS AND REPRESENTATIVE TASKS – GAMING GROUP

Information about the Website: 

https://www.ign.com

IGN Entertainment hosts a wide variety of content related to video games and entertainment on its website. The IGN acronym is commonly used as shorthand for “In Game Name” which refers to a player’s character name in the video game world. The site provides a variety of resources to gamers by way of game reviews, top entertainment news, social media content, game walkthroughs and more. IGN.com has earned its popularity among gamers and has developed a reputation as a “go to” site for gamers.

Persona:

The persona the Gaming group chose to focus on is 17- to 23-year-old gamers who enjoy playing many genres of games, from role-playing, first-person shooters, and multiplayer online battle arena to puzzle, action adventure, and survival/horror. These individuals are middle class, attend some type of school (high-school, college, or trade) and have at least a part-time job to give them the means to purchase video games. Their experience level with gaming ranges from beginner to expert since IGN has a wide variety of content available ranging from reviews to walkthroughs.

Scenario:

A typical user in the 17 – 23yr/old range visits the IGN website to get information on the newest games soon to be released and updates in the gaming industry. This can range from insider news on game features and development to public beta releases of games such as Overwatch and occasionally, news on the entertainment sector such as Netflix or HBO announcements. In our scenario, the user wants to find out information on the popular game Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. They want to know if the game has any cool features and game modes as well as any updates on the new open-world gameplay. Also, due to the user’s demographic and income, they’d like to know if there are any advantages to purchasing the game on a disk or a digital copy as well as any in-game mechanical changes such as movement that might play an important role in the overall experience. This is also a special year because this holiday season is when multiple 1st party developers are also releasing a bunch of AAA games such as God of War. Because of this, our user not only wants to see reviews on Legend of Zelda, but also other games so that he/she can see which ones are worth investing time and money in.

User Tasks:

  • We chose the specific task of accessing the Game of the Year awards for 2021 because the user is particularly interested in what’s trending in the gaming world. This user does not have a specific genre in mind for the games they would like beyond Legend of Zelda.  
  • Find a walkthrough for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to get an idea of how long the adventure will take to complete. With today’s top games at almost $60 each, many gamers do not want a game they can complete in a few hours. Gamers like to feel that they are getting their money’s worth. 
  • Look for reviews of the other Game of the Year contenders and see if any of their reviews are intriguing enough to warrant purchasing a different game.  

These tasks should provide an idea of how easy (or hard) navigating the site is as well as how useful the search feature is.

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Group Assignment 2: Healthcare – User Scenarios and Representative Tasks

Website: https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/

Introduction

The Healthcare Group is testing and re-designing the Jeff Davis Hospital (JDH) website, shown in Figure 1, JDH is a hospital system located in Hazlehurst, GA that serves patients and families affected by cardiovascular accidents such as strokes. Our interest is to observe and accommodate users who leverage technology to find more information and actions about their personal or family’s healthcare needs. Within healthcare alone technology can be frustrating but especially trying to navigate care for a loved one affected by a stroke which delays elderly care. This will be further exasperated when the demand for care exceeds provider capacity. However, digital strategies will promote efficiency and better outcomes (Haddad et al., 2022). Contrasting widely known healthcare systems like Mayo Clinic or Cleveland Clinic, Jeff Davis Hospital services a smaller population regionally and accentuates most heuristics issues previously violated around consistency, standards, error prevention, efficiency, and minimalist design (Nielsen, 2020).

Figure 1. Homepage (Jeff davis hospital, 2022)

In reviewing previous heuristics evaluations, the JDH site mainly displays inconsistency and rigidity by using uncommon semantics and disjointed site navigation. Notably, as shown in Figure 2, numerous medical knowledge articles directing users to learn about symptoms or conditions link externally to its antiquated Fast Health site with no backward navigation. Likewise, observing SEO results, many remnants of the old site designs remain in the top 10 results. This disjointed navigation will be reflected in our representative tasks while observing usability flaws identified by our target user group.

Figure 2. Legacy Page (Jeff Davis Hospital/Fast Health corporation (Hazlehurst, Georgia – Jeff Davis County, 2022)

User Persona and Scenario

Jennifer is a 53-year-old resident of St. Augustine, FL, and is the adult-child of an 82-year-old father that has recently suffered a stroke. Jennifer’s father lives outside of a rural, small town in Georgia called Hazelhurst, however, he was transferred from his local hospital, Jeff Davis Hospital, to a larger hospital for emergency surgery in Jacksonville, FL.

Jennifer’s father has completed his surgery and is recovering well; he has requested to be transferred back to his local hospital to complete recovery and rehabilitation so that he can be closer to his elderly wife and home.

Jennifer is using the Jeff Davis Hospital website for the first time to see if she can have her father transferred back to recover, learn more about stroke, and see what elderly-specific outpatient care coordination is available after being discharged.

Representative Tasks

1. Finding Information About Strokes on the Site

Our target user group is most interested in retrieving health-related information from Jeff Davis’s Fast Health interface. Namely, researching elderly strokes considering the high likelihood of such an event (Brain basics: Preventing stroke, n.d.). Our target users will review this information to make better decisions for the welfare of those impacted by such health issues.

This representative task of our target user group seeks to establish Fast Health’s trustworthiness and usability for its target audience. Namely, we are interested in testing how well Fast Health can satisfy the target user’s needs based on our given scenario for reviewing health information related to strokes. Additionally, we seek to document usability discrepancies identified while conducting Nielsen’s (2020) heuristics evaluations.

2. Find Patient Transfer Services for the Hospital

Patient transfer services are often needed for the elderly for several reasons. Namely, when the patient is transitioning from post-surgery to physical rehabilitation. Such services are imperative to the safety and well-being of the patient, which aids in their recovery. Our target user group will seek information related to this task through Jeff Davis’s website.

We are most interested in testing the website’s usability in carrying out this task. Specifically, matching real-world vocabulary to the system. That is, considering if the website has strong information scent for locating such services based on the user’s understanding.

3. Find Information About Elderly Care Coordination

Outpatient services provided to the elderly serve as a strong pillar for any medical facility. Our target user group will search for such services on the Jeff Davis website to help the elderly in their care. This task addresses similar usability issues identified in locating patient transfer services. Additionally, we are interested in testing usability flaws regarding the context and content provided by this section of the website. Namely, we are testing website consistency and standards regarding its naming conventions and brevity.

Conclusion

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that within the United States (U.S) every forty seconds someone has a stroke while more than 795,000 people (about half the population of Idaho) in the U.S experience a stroke annually (CDC, 2022). With the high probability of stroke that affects people in the U.S every year, having a plan of action and care plan for loved ones affected by stroke is imperative thus why effective navigation and usability of hospital sites like the JDH website is needed. In our presented usability analysis scenario is an 82-year-old stroke victim who received care in Jacksonville. Jennifer is attempting to access information on transferring her father from Jacksonville, FL to Hazelhurst, GA where JDH is located so that he may be closer to his elderly wife and home. The representative tasks include three steps which are as follows; Find information about strokes on the JDH website, Find Patient Transfer Services for the Hospital, and Find Information About Elderly Care Coordination. With these representative tasks, Jennifer could use the information found to make informed decisions to successfully transfer her father from Jacksonville, FL to Jeff Davis Hospital.

Total Word Count: 846

References

Brain basics: Preventing stroke. (n.d.). National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/public-education/brain-basics/brain-basics-preventing-stroke 

Haddad, L.M., Annamaraju, P., & Toney-Butler, T.J. (2022). Nursing Shortage. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493175/  

Jeff davis hospital. (2022). Jeff Davis Hospital. https://www.jeffdavishospital.org/

Jeff Davis Hospital/fasthealth corporation (Hazlehurst, Georgia – jeff davis county). (2022). Jeff Davis Hospital/FastHealth Corporation. http://www.jeffdavisfasthealth.com/

Nielsen, J. (2020, November 15). 10 usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

Stroke facts. (2022, April 5). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/stroke/facts.htm

Backlinks

Group Assignment 1 – Healthcare

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Group Assignment 2: User Scenarios and Representative Tasks

Group Name and Members

Arts and Crafts

Julia Bomalaski, Logan Davis, Amy Feinstein, Deborah Turner, Evan Wilson

The Chosen Website 

Our group has decided to analyze the website: Sarah Maker. We chose this website because it is a great example of a crafting/instructional site that has a lot of potential for improvement. We are interested in testing the usability of the catalog of posts as it pertains to navigation and searchability. 

The Chosen Persona

We’ve decided to focus on a social media savvy young woman who was inspired by Pinterest to pick up crocheting. She’s been saying she would eventually teach herself to crochet for years, but other priorities have hindered her from starting. She now has the free time to dedicate learning to crochet. With the low financial commitment and abundance of accessibility to resources on how to crochet, the barrier of entry was very low.

The Scenario

Inspired by social media, our persona would like to learn how to crochet, so she can start her own crocheting Instagram account. She’s looking to find clear instructions on how to start crocheting and easy but interesting-looking projects that she could post to her own social media profiles.

The Tasks

Task 1: Find instructions for a complete crochet beginner who has no idea how to even start the craft. 

Task 2: Learn what different types of yarn and thread are good for different kinds of crafting.

Task 3: Find a beginning crochet project that would make a good holiday gift for friends/family

With these tasks we hope to find out how easy it is to navigate when looking for a specific craft or tutorial as opposed to general browsing, how easy it is to switch between tasks (for example, if you can have the pattern instructions up but easily switch to the basic crochet instructions because you are still learning the stitches), and how easy the instructions are to follow (video vs picture tutorials, etc.)

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Group 2 Assignment: User Scenarios and Representative Tasks

Group name: Libraries

Group members: Christopher Gregor, Caitlin Hattaway, Jasmine Phillips, Erin Seaman, Colin Webb

Wilderness Coast Library System site

Our group chose The Wilderness Coast Library System website. We chose this website because it provides an opportunity to explore a shared catalog system that serves four library locations in three counties in North Florida. Additionally, as we explored the website, we were intrigued by the websites associated with each individual library (FCPL, JCPL, WCPL) in the Wilderness Coast system, as the county library web pages appear to have been created as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We felt this would present an interesting opportunity to see how websites that were implemented to increase accessibility to the library’s services during the shutdowns are functioning now, and what issues might have arisen as time went on from the initial implementation.

As we explored the pages, we noticed a variety of heuristic violations, particularly with the main catalog home page, so we plan to pay particular attention to the way that the home page does (and does not) assist the user with learning the website and finding what they need quickly and easily. We are also most interested in exploring The Jefferson County R.J. Bailar Public Library (JCPL) website more, as it was the most sparse and frustrating to navigate of the three Wilderness Coast library websites.

Jefferson County Public Library site

Persona

A student at Jefferson County High School unfamiliar with their local library and its services. They are preparing to apply to colleges and are working to keep a high GPA and an impressive set of extracurriculars. At home the family owns only one computer and they have multiple younger siblings, creating a need for somewhere quiet and available to work for longer hours on their final projects for classes. They have been assigned a research paper for their junior year history class and need to do research on a specific topic.

We chose this persona because for our tasks it made most sense for a student very focused on their upcoming assignments to need the services of the library. It also allowed us to explore more uses for the library beyond only finding an available book or two. Now in addition to that we can include the search for research tools like computers and printers.

Scenario

The high school student is trying to use their local library system to conduct research on a paper they have been assigned. The topic they are researching is the Ides of March and the death of Julius Caesar. The student will also look for activities and events that will help them become more engaged in their local library’s events to complete service hour requirements.

Tasks

Task 1

Using the Library system, the student will locate a relevant book for their research on the death of Julius Caesar, and which library that book is located at.

This particular task prompts our users to search for a specific set of books in the system, allowing us to observe the user refining their searches and exploring a couple of options much like our student persona would as they search for relevant materials. It also makes note of the availability of that book to the library near our persona’s county.

Task 2

Now knowing what book to look for and what library it is at, the student will look for the available hours of that library that does not overlap with their high school schedule.

This task forces our user to backtrack and return to the main page of the site to locate the hours of that library, not only refining their knowledge for the next task of additional services but also allowing us to observe how easy or difficult it is to backtrack on the website through its multiple links.

Task 3

Find information on the use of computers at the local library to complete their research paper on Julius Caesar’s death. The student will also find out how to print from the library. 

Finally, this task focuses on the persona’s need for extra services from the library and prompts our user to search for available tools on that library website, which in some cases isn’t in any familiar location to the user on the site and pushes them to search around a bit for this information. We as observers will be able to see if this additional search will stump any users now that they have gone across the site a bit already.

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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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Group Assignment 2: Museum Website Persona and Future Tasks

Chosen Website

We have chosen the Norman Rockwell Museum to analyze for the rest of the course (https://www.nrm.org/). We chose this site because of the many issues we noticed, hoping to figure out possible suggestions as to how to fix it. After looking at the website as a group, we decided to focus on the sections that include its collection/research resources, open careers, and exhibits. All of these sections have issues and usability violations of varying degrees, and we believe that it would be helpful to look at sections with clear usability issues to deepen our understanding about the class material as well as help us understand how to apply what we’ve learned to real life.

User Profile/Persona

The type of people who would potentially use this website are those who are interested in the museum’s collections, interested in going to visit the museum, interested in going to the museum’s events, and/or interested in donating/giving back to the museum. In order to analyze this website through the lens of someone who fits these criteria, we have developed a persona. After deliberation, we created a persona that is an art history student potentially interested in getting an internship at this museum. 

Scenario

We developed a scenario to help guide us in figuring out how our persona might interact with this website. Based on both the general persona we created and the overall type of people who visit this website, the scenario we created for our persona is:

Cameron is an undergraduate art history student at a local university. They became interested in Normal Rockwell’s works after attending a class that included these works. Cameron looked online to try and find more of these works, and ended up stumbling upon the Norman Rockwell Museum’s website. After looking around, they are interested in visiting the museum and, as they need an internship before they graduate from their program, would love to also intern at this museum as well. However, they are having some trouble navigating this museum’s website.

Through the use of this scenario, we are then able to develop tasks that a person like our persona, Cameron, would complete on this website. We expect Cameron to initially make use of the common search function on the main page of the site to find out more information on a certain collection. We also expect Cameron to navigate the third-party purchasing widget in hopes of purchasing their ticket. In performing these tasks, Cameron will have to explore alternative methods of accomplishing their tasks. 

Developed Tasks

For the future user tests that we will be completing individually, we have developed three tasks for our test users. The first task is to plan a visit to the museum by finding out how to buy a ticket and how to get to the museum. This is the most likely task a person going to this website might complete as many people who visit a website for a museum are looking to visit the museum itself as well. The second task is to find out if any internship opportunities are open and the details about the internship as well as someone like Cameron would look for career opportunities in this way. The third task is for the user to find a specific work called “Pointing Hand” in the Norman Rockwell Museum’s digital collections. A student like Cameron might hope to learn more about the museum, how an internship at the NRM can benefit their career, and if “Pointing Hand” would be a good candidate to do an assignment on. Therefore, using these types of tasks in our user tests might show us how someone might actually use the website.