Usability test for UnionStation.

org

Test Preparation
When I started to get everything ready for the usability test, I first started out going
through the steps myself to see how to conduct the tasks. I read the script out loud to myself to
make it as close to the test I would be conducting on my two testers. Once I finished reading out
loud the script I began with the first task.
You are bringing your grandmother to Union Station for a Sunday afternoon outing. She
cant walk more than about 50 steps at a time. Determine whether or not there will be a
wheelchair available for her to use during the visit. That was the first task so I began with going
to the website. I opened up my google chrome browser and typed in www.unionstation.org. It
then took me to the home page. I then took a look at the tabs that were displayed at the top as
shown below in the screenshot.

After reading the tabs I decided Plan Your Visit would be the best option. Once I
clicked on Plan Your Visit it took me to a page where it listed the admissions information,
normal building hours, days
the Union Station is closed,
group tickets, maps and directions, days the science city is closed, parking information,
discounts, amenities, and transportation. Under the amenities and transportation tab there was a
paragraph that stated that they offer ATMs, a nursing area and also wheelchairs. They had a link
that you could click on that would lead you to another page that gave you more information
regarding those amenities.

Once you clicked on that link it said Available at the Information Booth locaed in Grand
Hall. They ae avilable on a first come first serve basis for our guests at no charge. We require a
valid drivers license to thold as a deposti during the use of the wheelchair. With that informtion
I could conclude the first task. Overall, it was very easy to complete the first task. It was pretty
self explanatory. I didnt run into any problems when condcuting the first task but I could see
how this could be confusing for some testers, the intial first step might get people tricked up.
They might not think to click on Plan Your Visit or continue to click on the link in the text.
Going onto task two: You want to plan to see an Extreme Screen movie during your
visit, so you want to secue tickets in advance. Determine what is playing on Wednesday, Nov
25th. After reading this I then looked at the page I was on and went right back up to look at the
tabs to see if they could give me any information. I decided that Events Calandar would be the
first place to start to look.

Once I clicked on Events Calendar it took me to a page where it had a calendar that I could
click on the dates and see what events they have going on at Union Station that particular day. I
went to the next month and clicked on the proper date that was given and it directed me to a new
page where it had a list of extreme screen movies that were showing. Once again, with that
information I had completed the second task.
The third task was Go through the steps of buying two tickets from an Extreme Screen
movie on that day. Determine whether or not you can choose the actual seats so that you and
your grandmother will have wheelchair-compatible seating. With that information, I stayed on
the page I was on from the previous task and clicked on a movie to watch. Once I clicked on a

movie there was a little bio listed below the image of the movie and a button that you can click
on that says Buy Tickets. It takes you to a page where you verify the date and then add to your
basket. It then gives you the option to click on how many tickets you want and from there you go
to the checkout/basket phase of the task.

As you can see in the screenshot above, that is a spot where you can Select Seats, but
once you click on it, it leads to a dead end. It takes you right back to the previous page where
you selected how many tickets you wanted. As you can see towards the top is says Members
must be logged in to see documents shown in shopping cart. I didnt know if that had anything
to do with the fact that I couldnt select seats? With that I decided that you couldnt select seats
for the show.
Moving onto the final task, Youd like to spend time walking around Union Station
during your visit, but you want to be sure enough areas of the station will be wheelchair-friendly.
Go through the steps to send an email to the appropriate person/department to inquire about
wheelchair access throughout all areas of Union Station. From there I went to the homepage
where it had all the navigation tabs and decided to click on Contact. From there it takes you
right where you want to be. It shows a table chart of all the different departments and the
appropriate email for that department and then the task is complete. Overall, the tasks were

pretty simple. The only thing I was anticipating was problems with the third task about finding
seats for you and your grandmother in a wheelchair.

Choosing Participants
Tester 1: Nanette Fuson
My first tester was Nanette Fuson or as I like to call her, mom. I thought that she would
make a good tester because she uses the internet at work and also at home to browse Facebook,
clothing websites, and she is BIG on eBay. She knows her way around the internet pretty well
and has always been pretty good with technology for the most part. Nanette is a female and was
born on July 29th, 1960 which makes her 55 years old. She used to be the secretary for MFA Oil
for about 8 years and then took off a year of work due to health reasons and now she does the
book keeping/secretary role for the school busses in my hometown area.
When asked roughly how many hours a week she spent using the internet she responded
with about 15 hours, 60 percent was browsing through social media and 40 percent was on
clothing websites, eBay, etc. Although she hasnt been an internet user for as long as others, I
still consider her a high experience user of the internet and she thought so as well. When asked
what her favorite websites were she had to narrow it down to just a couple: Facebook, then came
eBay and finally Barrel Horse World.

Environment for Tester 1:

Physical environment:
When I asked where she usually is when she browses the internet she said its usually on
the couch, outside on the deck or on the island in the kitchen. We decided to go with the island in

the kitchen because 1, it was kind of cold outside at the time and 2, my dad and sister were
sitting in the living room watching a movie. So, the island in the kitchen it was!
It was a Sunday morning before we went to church when I conducted this usability test.
Our church got a new kitchen and we were having a lunch for all the members of the church so
my mom had some casseroles and brownies in the oven. That was one distraction that had her
occupied, she had to get up a couple times to check on the food and get everything ready for the
lunch after church. Our kitchen is pretty open and has big French doors and big windows so the
lighting was very bright, the sun was shining in and it was a beautiful morning.
While we were conducting the test my dad and sister were in the living room right next to
the kitchen watching a movie on the television. We could hear what was happening and when
they laughed or talked to each other we could hear them talking. Another distraction that
occurred was that she got a couple text messages while the test was going on. She didnt stop the
test to answer the texts, but she did stop to look and see who they were from.
We recently had a stray dog come to our house and she is a little crazy and she was
running and playing with our other dog inside and being loud. They were a bigger distraction for
Nanette because she had to keep getting after them to not run in the kitchen because of the
hardware flooring. Also, one of our cats jumped up on her lap and kept on purring and rubbing
against her while she was trying to explore and work though the tasks I was giving her.
Technical environment:
For the test she was using her work laptop which is a HP Chromebook, which she usually
uses when she is on the internet. We have wireless internet at home so there were no internet
cords in the way, the only cord that was connected to the computer was the charger for the

computer. The screen isnt small but it isnt huge either, it is 14 with a 1,366 x 768 screen
resolution. We use CenturyLink for our internet provider and in King City, it is fairly fast.
Nanette used google chrome for her internet browser and didnt have any pop up ads to distract
her while entering the site and during the test. One thing that did occur during the beginning of
the test was there was a notification that she got for two new e-mails in her inbox, other than that
plug-in there were no other technical distractions.
Since it is a laptop, there was no mouse to scroll and click on the different buttons. It is a
normal mouse pad in the bottom and middle of the laptop. While she was conducting the test she
also had a lot of tabs open in her browser. Nanette had tabs open for her work, her Facebook
profile, and also Barrel Horse World.
Tester 2: Doug Fuson
I decided to go with Doug Fuson as my low-experience tester. I think he is a good
candidate for a tester because he gets on the internet to look up farming and rodeo/roping videos
on YouTube but that is about as far as his internet experience goes. He doesnt have to work with
the internet for a living, so the only chance he has to get on the internet is when he is at home. He
is a farmer/mechanic so he spends the majority of his time outside working in the field, working
on trucks or tractors, or roping and none of that has to deal with the internet unless he orders
parts.
Doug Fuson is my father, and was born on June 24th, 1955 which would make him 60
years old. He has never been to UnionStation.org so this was all new content for him to
experience. When I asked him how many hours a week he though he spend browsing the internet
was 5 hours, 100 percent of it was browsing YouTube videos and looking up parts. Then when

asked if he thought if he was a high or low experience user his response was, HA, is there a
step below low. His favorite website is YouTube and when I asked why he responded with
because thats the only website that he goes to.

Environment for Tester 2

Location of test:
For the location of this test, we conducted while he was lounging in his recliner and I
pulled up a chair next to him. We decided on this as the location for the test because this is where
he sits for about everything: watching TV, eating, napping, and even browsing the internet.
Physical environment:
We were in the living room when we conducted the test and while this was going on my
sister was sitting on the couch watching the same movie that my dad and sister were watching
when I was conducting the test with my mom in the kitchen. He would keep looking up to watch
his favorite parts of the movie which would stop the test for a little. As we would continue the
test another distraction would come up, my mom would come in the living room to remind us to
check the food in the oven among other things.
The lighting of the room was very well lit up. Dougs recliner is right by the front door
and that morning the sun was shining right in, along with the sun shining in through the front
door we had the curtains open so there was also the sun shining in through the windows. He was
comfortable, just having a light blanket over his legs while conducting the tests and his nice
sweater that he was going to wear to church.

The dogs were still playing around in the living room so he had to keep the dogs in line,
but only got after them a couple times during the first task. During the end of the test, Doug got a
phone call from our farm hand who ran into some difficulties when he was checking cattle so we
had to take a break so he could go handle what was going on. He was gone for about an hour and
when he came back we continued to finish up the usability test.
Technical environment:
Doug was using the same computer as the first tester, Nanette was using. When asked if
that is the computer he usually uses he responded with, Yes, when your mother brings her work
computer home we share it. He was using a HP Chromebook, it was 14 and had a normal
mouse pad in the bottom middle of the laptop. We have wireless internet so there were no cords
getting in the way, it was all charged up so the charger cord was put away.
The screen resolution for the HP Chromebook was 1,366 x 768, the screen was clear and
easy for Doug to see and complete the Usability test. He was using google chrome for his
internet browser and CenturyLink is his internet provider which offers high speed internet. Since
it was Nanettes work computer he was using, she kept on receiving e-mails that notified the
computer that would pop up in a little box in the bottom left hand of the computer.

Test Results
Initial Site Thoughts
Tester 1 Report:

Nanettes initial thoughts about the website were pretty normal. After I told her she
couldnt click on anything and just scroll she looked over the home page. When asked what her
initial thoughts were about the website she responded with a few things. She first stated that it
looked very well put together. She compared it to the Fort Worth Stockyard website. She thought
that the layout and the way it was set up was very similar.

Once we finished the usability test I asked Nanette again what her thoughts were about
www.unionstation.org. She responded with basically the same response as the first time I asked
her. She explained to me that she has to have things written out for her and instructions to tell
her where to go when she is on a website and with www.unionstation.org, she felt like it was
pretty much laid out for her to navigate through very well. The layout was well designed and
overall, she thought that it was a good website.
Tester 2 Report:
Doug didnt have as much to say as the first tester, Nanette had to say about the website.
When I asked Doug what his initial thoughts of the website was before he started the usability
test he answered with it look cool. Like I said he didnt have muc to say about the site. As he

scrolled down he mentioned that the website had a lot of color and potrayed Union Station as a
fun and exciting place. After the usability test was conducted I asked once again what he thought
about the website and he responed with the face that it was harder than he first thought it would
be, but it still looked pretty!
Task 1: You are bringing your grandmother to Union Station for a Sunday afternoon
outing. She cant walk more than about 50 steps at a time. Determine whether or not there
will be a wheelchair available for her to use during the visit.
Tester 1:
When I asked her to go to www.unionstation.org she went to google and then typed in
Union Station in the search box. She spelt it wrong and then instead of just clicking on the did
you mean: she just exited out of the browser and re-opened up the browser and tried it again.
She took her time reading the tabs in the navigation and she decided that Plan Your Visit would
be the best option. Once that page loads, she starts to read out loud what is on the page. She
starts out with reading the Admission Information and then makes her way all the way to the
bottom and found Amenities and Transportation.

With that information she decided that she had completed the task but wanted to click on
the link that was given in the description. Once Nanette clicked on the link, it took her to more
informtion about wheelchairs and then she had finally decided that she had completed the task..
-

Answer: Yes, wheelchairs are availabe at first come first serve.

Completed: Yes

Tester 2:
Doug clicked on google chrome to access www.unionstation.org and got it right the first
time. Once the page loaded and he knew what the task was asking him to do, Doug decided to
click on About Us as his first move. Once he clicked on About Us he scrolled down and
found a video and he stopped to watch it. Once he watched it and there was no information on
wheelchairs available he continued to scroll down the site to see if there was any other
information that had to do with the first task.
Once he concluded that there was nothing on About Us he decided to click on Contact
Us. Once the page loaded it just showed the different departmetns and their e-mail but Doug
didnt realize that is what it was, he kept on trying to click on the e-mail address and was
confuesed when it pulled up the e-mail in the separate window. Still confused on the whole email addresses he the facility rental department thinking there would be wheelchair rental
information. Once he realized that Contact Us was not going anywhere he scrolled back up to
the top and decided to go to to click on Plan Your Visit. Once he got to Plan Your Visit he
scrolled down to the bottom and yelled Hey, I found it.
-

Answer: Yes, wheelchairs are available for customers.

Completed: Yes

Recommendations to improve UX for this task:

Instead of just listing a few quest amenities under the Plan Your Visit list all of them
under the Amenities and Transportation title that way the user doesnt have to click on yet
antoher link that is provided in the text. This will reduce the number of clicks that the user has to
make to complete a task. This is where error prevention, one of the 10 usability heruistics could
come into play. Some users might be looking for a amenitie that wasnt listed in the few that they

provided and they might over look the link in the text which could result the user not finding the
correct information desired.

Task

2:

You want to plan to see an Extreme Screen

movie during your visit, so you want to secure
tickets in advance. Determine what is playing

on

Wednesday, Nov. 25.

Tester 1:
Nanette started the second task and frist off went right to Events Calendar. Once the
page loaded she went right to the calendar that was on the right hand side of the page and clicked
on the date of November 25th, 2015. She noticed that on the left hand side of the page it showed a
list of movies that were being played at Union Station. She made the comment,Man, that was
really easy.
Tester 2:

Answer: Found two Extreme Screen movies

Completed: Yes

Once I read the second task to Doug, he made the reamark that well this sounds easy and
as he said that he started to begin looking at the page to see where he was going to go. He started
to talk himself through the steps by saying out loud, Well if I want to see a movie where would I
go. He first clicked the back button which took him to the Contact Us page and once he was
there he started to look again at the different departments. He kept on thinking that by clicking
on the departments, it would take him to more info instead of just bringing up e-mails. Doug
clicked on a few different departments and found a department called Group Sales. He was for
sure that this would take him to tickets but once again it just brought up another e-mail. He then
realized that this page was not taking him anywhere and went all the way back to the home page.
Doug then clicked on Science City and as soon as the page loaded and he scrolled up and
down to look at the page he turned to me and said, I give up.
-

Answered: N/A
Completed: No

Recommendations to improve UX for this task:

One recommendation that I would have for this task to before the page advances to the
next page where it shows the movies, there should be a pop up box that asks Are you sure you
want to select November 25th? This will reduce the chance for error and is also uses the Error
Prevention heuristic.

Task 3: Go through the steps of buying two tickets for an Extreme Screen Movie on that
day. Determine whether or not you can choose the actual seats so that you and your
grandmother will have wheelchair compatible seating.
Tester 1:
With this informtion Nanette began to start the task. Since she was already on the Events
Calendar and already had the movies listed on the side, she clicked on Robots 3D and made
the comment, Well, she probably wont like Robots 3D but that dont matter. Once she decided
on the movie she clicked on More Info. Then the next page loaded and she clicked on Buy
Tickets and then had to re-select the date for the movie and then clicked on Add to basket to
the right of the page.
Once you got to the next page it made Nanette select how many tickets she wanted and
then Add to basket once again. This is the point in the task when Nanette started to get lost and
confused. She noticed that there is a button that says Select Seats and once she clicked on that,
it took her right back to the previous page she was on when she clicked the number of tickets she
would like. Nanette kept on making the comment, I dont see where it asks for seats. She first
tried to click on the Union Station icon in the middle of the screen but it only took her back to
the box office so she then decided that she would try the whole process over again. She went
back to the home page and went through the same process for a second time and still could not
find out where it was asking you to select seats.
-

Answered: No, you cannot choose seats

Completed: Yes

Tester 2:
Doug was very comical when conducting these tasks. When I read the task 3 to him he
didnt even touvh the mouse pad and looked right at me and said, I cant even find the movie so
you can beat youre a** I wont find tickets.
-

Answered: N/A
Completed: No

Recommendations to imporve UX for this task:

This is the one task that both of my users could not complete. For one tester, he couldnt
even find the movies and the other tester found the movie and tickets fine they just couldnt
figure out how to select the seats and as to why the button was sending them to the previous
page. That is a major problem, and the fact that the user doesnt understand why it is taking the
user back to the previous page?
A recommendation could be to have the option to select seats in the page where you
select how many tickets you want. This will eliminate one extra click that the user with have to
do and make sure the website it functioning and the user can actually pick seats.This ties into the
error prevention heuristic.

Help and documentation could be used in this situation as well. Seeing as both of my
testers had trouble fulfilling this task, other users probably had trouble with this too. This is
where they could have a help option somewhere on the page to assist the user in selecting a seat.
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors is a heuristic that could be put
into use. The website could let the user know that there was an error when trying to find seats
instead of just sending the user back to the previous page and makig the user question what is
going on.

Finally, I would recommend that the Union Station icon in the middle of the screen be
consistent with the use of it as a button that will take the user back to the home page. When in
the part of the task where she wanted to seats,

Nanette

clicked on the home page to start over and it just took

her back to the

box office. Since that icon is used as a return to home

page button in

almost all of the other pages, it should stay consitent

with this page.

Task 4: Youd like to spend time walking around Union Station during your visit, buy you
want to be sure enough areas of the station will be wheelchair-friendly. Go through the
steps to send an email to the appropriate person/department to inquire about wheelchair
access throughout all areas of Union Station.
Tester 1:
For the final task, Nanette went back to the home page by hiting the back icon. At this
point, I could tell Nanette was frustrated and a little confused at to where to go. She stopped to
think about it for a few seconds and made the comment, I dont kow where to go. She first
started out by going back to Plan Your Visit. She is talking out loud and keeps naming off the
content that is on the website. She remembers that there was a link for the wheelchairs from the
previous task and goes down to that. She clicks on the link and reads again the text under the
Wheelchair section.
She soon realizes that she is in the wrong place and decides to go to Contact. Once that
page loads she startes to read the different departments and selects the best department that fits
into the wheelchair category.

Answer: found email to contact about wheelchairs

Completed: Yes

Tester 2:
Doug went to the Contact page but still is clicking around after I read him what his task
is. He makes the comment that he hardly ever sends emails out so this might be difficult fo him.
With that in mind, he sees Facility Rentals as a department and instead of clicking on the email
that is in the column right by it, he clicks on the link to the different faclity rentals offered which
took him to a new page.

Once the page loaded, he read all the different rental options and starts to
click on the different rooms/spaces available. He then made the comment after
clicking on a few different rooms. How in the sams heck am I going to email
someone? He then scrolled all the way down to the bottom and found the Contact
Us under Contact. He clicked on that which just took him back to the previous
page and he decided that Plan Your Visit was a better option. Once he looked over
that page once it loaded, he decided he could not find out where to email the
department the task was asking him to do.
-

Answer: N/A
Completed: No

Recommendations to improve UX for this task:

A recomentdation I would make is to add a little more discription with the different
departments. One of my testers had a little trouble deciding which department would be the best
to email about the wheelchair area at Union Station. Although this heuristic doesnt completely
go with this example it could, visibility of system status. Let the user know who they are sending
the email to and not just a department name.

Testing Conclusions
Completion Rate:
Tester 1 completed 4 out of 4 tasks which puts her completion rate at a 100%. Tester 2
completed 1 out of 4 tasks which puts his completion rate at a 25%.
Similarities and differences:
Doug and Nanette shared some similarities and also had many differences when it came
to completed the 4 tasks that were asked of them. Nanette thought every step through and
thought it out which way would be the best to accomplish each task. As for Doug, if it sounded
like it might be the right option, then he went with it and just saw where it took him.
Nanette was more observant when she was making her way through the website and that
is one reason why I believe Nanette was able to complete more tasks than Doug. They both went
about different ways when conducting each task. The one thing that was consistent between the
two was that they used the same computer when conducting the usability test.

Heuristics:
Aesthetic and minimalist design is one heruistic that I thought the website did well.
Throughout the website they kept everything simple and to the point. The websites content was
straight forward for the most part and was easy for the user to understand what was being asked
of them.
Consistency and standards is one of the 10 heuristics that are also done well. One place
wehre you can see this is the top right corner where you can see your account and log in.
Although it doesnt say log in, you can still create an account and access your account if you
already have one. The Add to Basket is another term that you see on a lot of commerce
websites. It is a common term that is known across the nation and is something that everyone
should know what means. Once again the add to basket can also be an example for Match
between system and the real world. This is a term that users know and a phrase the users see a
lot on commerce websites.

User control ad freedom is another heuristic that the website did fairly well. For the
most part, most of their pages used the Union Station icon as their emergency exit when they

wanted to leave a page and return back to the home page. It was a quick get away for the user
when they decided that they didnt want to be on that page anymore.