This module covers the basics of usability. I've created a list of questions to answer before creating a site which I will include in my usability report.
Pre-Development Questions
- Why is this site being developed?
- Who will come to your site?
- When and why should those people come?
- What, at the very least, do users need to be able to do?
- What sort of limitations might the user have?
- What are your users preferences as far as sophistication, plug-ins etc.
- What are your users current habits when using similar websites that can be incorporated to make the site easier to use
- How do your users currently complete the task your website will help them with
- What do users hate about currently available systems?
- What is the profile of your users?
Usability Objectives
- Easy to learn.
- Efficient to use.
- Easy to remember on subsequent visits.
- Satisfying, with a minimum number of errors as users go through the site.
Usability Testing Cycle
- ask
- test
- retest
Don't Make Me Think
- Make it obvious
- Make sure it's obvious what can be clicked on
- Eliminate the question marks!
- If not obvious then at least self-explanatory
Microsoft's Useability Testing
Risden, K. (1999). Toward usable browse hierarchies for the Web. In Bullinger, H. and Ziegler, J. (Eds.) Human Computer Interaction: Ergonomics and User Interfaces, 1, 1098-1102.
Basically the crux of this article was that when designing a browse heirarchy the more general and similar terms used to describe categories are, the more confusing they are for users.
Dziadosz, S. and Chandrasekar, R. (2002) Do Thumbnail Previews Help Users Make Better Relevance Decisions about Web Search Results? In Proceedings of SIGIR 2002, Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (Tempere, Finland, August 11-15, 2002), ACM Press, 365-366.
this article concluded that it is better to have both text and a preview image of relavent search results than either alone.
Market Research
So, the site I'm thinking about doing is for planning and blogging Road Trips. I have personally yet to find one that even first of all recognizes that your starting destination, and your finishing destination are more often than not one and the same - it might be an airport, or your home, or a city you are visiting that you're taking a few days break from, but only rarely is someone planning to end up somewhere else. Also, many seem to want you to share your trip with the world - personally, I like to send information to a few friends/family but I don't need to broadcast it to the world. Also, I want to be able to store all my reservations (which I didn't have to make via that site), calculate out costs - including gas, tolls, hotels etc, map out stops, blog each stop and add pictures to it. I'd like to basically have a map which shows where you are on the road trip - maybe across the bottom of the page - and then you can either scroll through the trip (with a cool little car moving along the map - ok, not necessary - but fun :) or click on a stop to see information. All the reservations would be available in one section, all the photos in another.
There seem to be a lot out there that help you find out stuff to do, where to go, eat, stay etc. - and I'm sure for many people that is important. But I think there must be other people out there like me who would like to be able to put together a nifty, interactive website of their travels.
Now - I guess the main thing I need to do is find out if anyone else has this issue -and if perhaps they would like to have a solution to this problem. So, on to designing a questionnaire. Having done this in a previous unit I'm fairly confident of my abilities to do so. I'm not sure where I will find people to take it though. I've found a few message boards on Road Trips so will hit them up first.
I did find a site at http://www.roadtripamerica.com/travelplanning/userguidefree.htm#rta which rated the top road trip sites. Although most of them were purely planning tools, not travel blogging tools as well. In any case, None of them recieved 5*
I then started looking at travel blog sites - some of these contained some of the missing elements of the road trip sites, although many of them are more aimed at blogging for sharing with everyone so that others can find out information about a particular area. Although this is, I'm sure, of great interest to many. It's not quite what I'm looking to do.
I also started to think about a lot of these travel sites being geared towards international travel. I think my focus is going to be American Road Trips. First of all - there is soooo much to see here in America. Secondly - there is a great tradition of road trips in America. Thirdly - even as gas prices get more expensive, flying is becoming even more expensive - especially for families. I think the great American road trip will become even more important. Although I said earlier that I wasn't so much looking for it to be a social networking site. I would like to see it be a repository where people might find out information about places by reading other's posts on that place.
I also don't want it to be all about booking travel through the site. I think with simple affiliate links to some of the travel sites I use - and perhaps some way to automatically add my affiliate ID's to links from posts - say someone is looking at another post and the person stayed at the Ruby's Best Western at Bryce Canyon. If they think, oh I'll book that too, then when they click on it they will go to the Best Western site with my affiliate id attached. But I digress....
So, looking back at those pre-development questions. Preliminarily, without doing any actual research, here's what I think...
- Why is this site being developed?
- To provide a way for people to both plan and share their American road trips. There are sites which exist that do one or the other quite well. But none that do both exceptionally.
- To provide a way for people to both plan and share their American road trips. There are sites which exist that do one or the other quite well. But none that do both exceptionally.
- Who will come to your site?
- People who are planning road trips
- people following someone elses roadtrip
- people who are looking for roadtrip ideas
- people who are reminiscing about road trips they have taken
- People who are planning road trips
- When and why should those people come?
- People who are planning road trips should come because they will be able to research, document, map and share their plans. The site will allow for multiple people to be involved in the planning process.
- People who are planning road trips should come because they will be able to research, document, map and share their plans. The site will allow for multiple people to be involved in the planning process.
- What, at the very least, do users need to be able to do?
- Map the places they want to go
- Insert information links for activities
- Insert bookings for hotels/attractions etc.
- Blog with images attached to particular places
- Print out the itinerary
- Share the trip
- Map the places they want to go
- What sort of limitations might the user have?
- Limited computer skills
- Limited computer skills
- What are your users preferences as far as sophistication, plug-ins etc.
- I would say things which are commonly included within a standard browser. I would prefer to stay away from anything which would require specialized plug-ins as I would imagine many older people would use the service
- I would say things which are commonly included within a standard browser. I would prefer to stay away from anything which would require specialized plug-ins as I would imagine many older people would use the service
- What are your users current habits when using similar websites that can be incorporated to make the site easier to use
- Searching for hotels (maybe integrate Kayak)
- Entering Blog posts (maybe integrate blogger)
- Searching for hotels (maybe integrate Kayak)
- How do your users currently complete the task your website will help them with
- I think there are two types of users. One who uses a roadtrip site to plan it, and one that uses travel blogs to share the trip/photos etc.
- Planners – some use sites such as AAA or RandMcNally. They research what they are going to do, where they are going to stay etc. and then print it all out.
- Bloggers – may plan beforehand but blog the trip seperatly. Some may do this on paper, rather than on computer. Pictures may or may not be linked to particular sites/evenets.
- I think there are two types of users. One who uses a roadtrip site to plan it, and one that uses travel blogs to share the trip/photos etc.
- What do users hate about currently available systems?
- Personally I hate that it's very difficult to find all the information I need, compile it into one place, share it with others and then add text/information/ratings for things we did. We do a lot of family road trips where there are more than one family involved and choices need to be made about different options etc. This is difficult with the others. Even Yahoo which does allow for a lot of this functionality is difficult to use. I would never sent my in-laws to a Yahoo site as they would just be overwhelmed.
- The lack of obvious grouping or progression.
- Personally I hate that it's very difficult to find all the information I need, compile it into one place, share it with others and then add text/information/ratings for things we did. We do a lot of family road trips where there are more than one family involved and choices need to be made about different options etc. This is difficult with the others. Even Yahoo which does allow for a lot of this functionality is difficult to use. I would never sent my in-laws to a Yahoo site as they would just be overwhelmed.
- What is the profile of your users?
- Mother's of school aged children who plan the summer road trip
- Seniors who are in retirement and are travelling via RV
- College aged kids
- Young married couples without kids
- Mother's of school aged children who plan the summer road trip
Ok – so I've looked at the most popular sites and am going to focus on three which meet some of my requirements.
AAA - TripTik
Yahoo TripPlanner
RealTravel
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