Kristina Maddox

Usability Task Paperl

Usability Analysis

Audience

The audience for the New York Times is spilt fairly evenly among men and

women. There are around 108 million men and 116 million women that view the

site. Most of the audience has attended any type of college but some college. They

are full time employees that own a house. 85 million have a household income of

75,000+ and around 55 million have a household income of 100,000+. So it is safe to

say that their income in usually a range from 75,000+ but not any higher than

150,000.

Chosen Testers

Low-experience: Jeff Maddox

I chose Jeff Maddox, my father, as one of the testers in this usability

assignment because first because he fits in with the Demographics. He is 48 years

old and has graduated from a 4-year degree in college. He now works a full-time job

as an electrician for good paying job and also farms on his free time. He owns his

own home and makes the same household income as the others in the Demographic

of the New York Times. He does like to know what is going on in the news and pays

attention to the news. He also is what the book calls a low-experience web user.

From our textbook Prioritizing Web Usability “a low-experience web user

has been online for no more than three years, used the web for less than ten hours

per week, exhibited less than a third of the advanced behaviors, asked someone else
to fix their computer problems, and weren’t consulted for advice on technology”

(Nielsen, Loranger, 25) Jeff Maddox is a low-experience user because he is not that

experienced in using the web. He occasionally with gets on the computer to check

weather.com, his email, and possibly football stats. At most he is on the Internet for

a couple hours for the entire week. He never fixes his computer problems; instead

his wife does it for him. He is known for opening up the emails that will contain

viruses and black out the whole computer. He has never been asked for advice

because he does not know much at all about it. He does not know any of the

advanced tasks listed in our textbook either. He has however been on the Internet

for more than there years, just not on it often enough to make him familiar with the

web and how it works.

High-experience: Jeff Zeller

The second person I decided to test was Jeff Zeller, a friend of my boyfriends.

Jeff Zeller is 29 years old and lives by himself in the house he owns in Maryville. He

graduated with a 4-year degree and now works full-time and owns a couple rental

proprieties in Maryville. Even though he does not make as much as the suggested

household income, he is very interested in what is going on in today’s news. He is

not subscribed to the New York Times but he does pay close attention to the local

and regional newspapers to follow up with what is going on each day.

Also from our textbook Prioritizing Web Usability “a high-experience web

user has been online for at least four years, used the web fore more than ten hours

per week, exhibited more than a third of the advanced behaviors, fixed their own

computer problems, and were a source of advice fore others.” (Nielsen, Loranger,
25) Jeff has been online fore quite some time now and uses the Internet daily for all

sorts of different things. He spends at least a couple hours everyday checking up on

news, weather, sports, and his social media sites. He exhibits the advanced

behaviors such as web chatting, changing labels on bookmarks, upgrading his web

browser, as well as which web browser is which. He updates his computers and

takes care of them so that they are in good shape. He has been known to fix any

problems he or one of his friends may be having with his computer.

Usability Testing

Testing Environment: Jeff Maddox

 Physical environment: We did the test at the computer desk in the

living room. The only lights that were on were the one by the

computer and the hallway on the other side of the room. I pulled up a

chair next to him as he sat in the usual leather computer chair. Both of

the family dogs were in the house but only one of them was playing on

the floor with a bone. Not that much of a distraction for him. Mom was

done cooking and my brother was upstairs so there was no one

around for any distractions while he focused on taking his tests.

 Technical environment: He was working on Acer desktop computer

with DSL Internet connection. He used Internet Explorer. He had no

idea what the screen resolution of the computer ways and there were

no browser add-ons.

Test Results: Jeff Maddox

 Task 1 Analysis: At 3:22 looks at the sports and then he scrolls up

and down the page skimming for entertaining information. He then

clicks on the market page of the site and looks at the page scrolling up

and down occasionally stopping to read a section quickly before

moving again. Then he went back to the homepage. Task complete at

3:23.

 Task 2 Analysis: At 3:25 he starts from the homepage. He stares at

the top of the page not knowing what to do with a dumb founded look

on his face. He then scrolls up and down trying to figure out what to

do. He then gets flustered and lets out a sigh and then finally realizes

where the search box is located. He then puts in TED conference and it

leads him to the links. He scrolls down the page and lets out a sign and

says he gives up.

 Task 3 Analysis: At 3:31 he goes back to the homepage to start the

next task. Puts in Sept 26th into the search engine and it takes him to

links. He scrolls up and down the page and looks confused and using

bad words to make up for his loss of knowledge of what to do from

there. He then goes back to the search engine and adds NFL to the end

of the search engine and it takes him back to the list of links. He clicks

back and forward from the links to the website it takes him unable to

fine the score of the game. By this point he is fluster by the look on his

face he has no idea. He lets out a sigh and says, “I quit!” Looking over

at me and laughing because he doesn’t have a clue how to find it. 3:35
 Task 4 Analysis: At 3:45 he goes back to the home page to complete

the next task. Quickly hits on job tab in the navigation at the top of the

page. Pulls up a bunch of jobs and clicked on one that gave a

description. He looked it over quickly not to find a email link so he

said crap and gave up at 3:47 without trying to find out how to email

it to someone.

 Task 5 Analysis: He returned the homepage to begin the next task at

3:50. He scrolls up and down the home page skimming it for how to

find another date on the page. He typed in the date in the search

engine and it took him to links. He clicked a link that said “Past seven

days” and that brought up nothing so he quickly gets mad and raises

his eyebrows letting out a flustered sound. Then he added front page

to the search it brought up more links that were not related which

confused him even more and he shrugged his shoulders and gave up

at 3:54.

 Task 6 Analysis: At 3:56 he began the tasks by returning to the

homepage. He scrolled up and down the site for about a minute

looking confused and then sighed and said “how can I do this if I don’t

know what a podcast even is?” Then he gave up about a minute later

at 3:57.

 Task 7 Analysis: He returned to the homepage for the last task at 4

and clicks on the crosswords on the left hand side of the page and it

takes him to the games. He scrolls up and down the page missing the
 raindrop link. Then finally sees the icon as his eyes light up and he

smiles. He then waits for the page to load laughing quietly. He

attempts the first one and he accidently puts in a wrong number to the

problem and he doesn’t know how to get it out. So then he puts in 414

and it says it’s the wrong answer. Then he laughs and starts to get in

to the game and starts using the number keys with a smile on his face.

Then he gets stuck and starts to count on his figures laughing and

biting his tongue focusing hard on the game. He ends up getting 93%

in the game. Then he said it was getting really boring and quits at 4:05

He ended by saying never to ask him to do that again because he felt

like the village idiot!

Testing Environment: Jeff Zeller

 Physical environment: Jeff wanted to take the test on his couch in his

living room because he said that is where he did most of his work on

the computer. The TV was on with low sound and all the lights were

on. The door was open so you could hear a little bit of the outside

which was mostly just cars driving down the road. The lights were

fairly deemed so his computer seemed to be pretty bright to look at.

His dog was running around so that was a little bit of a distraction

because it would run up to him while he was doing the tasks but

didn’t really distract him away from trying to complete his tasks.

 Technical environment: He is used a Gateway laptop. Using window

7 software and used Internet Explorer. The browser only had the
 Google search bar at the top of the browser. 1200x800 screen

resolution. He was using his own wireless network that he had

password protected so that he is the only one that knows and uses his

internet connect so there is fairly fast speed on the internet.

Test Results: Jeff Zeller

 Task 1 Analysis: On the home page he looked around for about

3 seconds and then he clicked the link to take him to the sports

page. He quickly clicks on the graphic of football guys tackling.

Skims down the page pretty quickly. Goes back up to the back

button. Goes back to sports page, clicks on the side link to

another site about Brett Favre and skims down the page now

and then stopping to read something that catches his eye. Goes

back to the back button and skims further down on the sports

page. Makes a gesture with his face as he clicks on a cartoon for

a story on tracking athlete’s moves. Clicks and plays the video

describing how an athlete throws the ball. Makes another

gesture with his face and says cool then starts to look around at

other links.

 Task 2 Analysis: Starts task at 7:08 Goes up top to the sports

bar and types in TEC conferences. Makes an ‘ugh’ look on his

face as he skims down the page looking at the different links.

Says that cant be want is it and then shrugs his shoulders. He

then clicks on the first link that says a conference makes

learning free and sexy. Scrolls down the page skimming the text
 with wide eyes and a clueless look. Then goes straight to the

bottom quickly and back up to the top. Goes back to the search

result page and types in 2011 at the end on TED conference.

Looks at the links and then goes back to type TED conference

date. At 7:15 he turns to me and says, “can I just give up on

this?”

 Task 3 Analysis: Starts task at 7:17 by going back to homepage

and clicks on the NFL scoreboard to the right side of the page.

Clicks back the week back to week 3 and finds the score 24/17

Baltimore at 7:18

 Task 4 Analysis: Starts task at 7:19 and goes back to the

homepage and scrolls all the way down to the bottom of the

page. Clicks work for us. Scrolls down the page quickly and

clicks on the start your search now link. Waits for the page to

load. Makes a sigh, Gets flustered that the page isn’t loading

and clicks the back button. Then scrolls further down the

previous page until returning to the link that he had just clicked.

Goes to the left hand side and clicked search for all jobs. Looks

at the jobs and then sees a job shook his head yes and clicked

on the ad planning strategy analysis job and then clicked on

email job to friend. He typed in his own email address and

clicked sent. Finished task at 7:23.

 Task 5 Analysis: Starts task at 7:24 by going back to the

homepage. Clicked on today’s paper and scrolled down the page

 to the calendar to the right of the page towards the bottom and

clicked on the 12th. Looks at a blue box and sees that the New

York City Edition print version page has a little box with an x in

it and he signs and turns to me and says its not working. Then

he turns back around and refreshes the button to see the front

cover. He clicks the link at the top of the image to the national

edition. He goes back and forward between the two saying that

they both have the Obama rally, they both talk about Haiti, The

main pictures are the same and content is mostly the same but

the location of he stories are different. 7:30 task is complete.

 Task 6 Analysis: Starts task at 7:32 and goes back to the

homepage and quickly skims the page for links. Places his hand

up by his chin and stares at the screen scrolling up and down

the page. He then clicked on the technology tab on the side and

scrolled down the page and quickly back up to the top. Went

back to the search engine and asked how to spell what he was

looking for after spelling it wrong. Types in Ethicist Podcast and

scrolled down the links and then went back up to the top and

deleted podcast. Clicks on the first link reading Magazine: The

Ethicist. Scrolls down that page and looks at the different

content on the page. Then back up to the top. Then turns to me

and says I don’t see where you can sign up at. Then searches

for podcast while biting his lip and crossing his arms. Lets out a

sign and continues to click on New York Times section Podcasts.

 Clicks subscribe and then clicks the third one down which is

Ethicist. Test completed at 7:38

 Task 7 Analysis: Starts at 7:39 and returns back to the

homepage. Scrolls down the page looking at the links on the left

hand side. Clicks crossword games. Scrolls down to find brain

games. Looks up from his computer as he waits and then clicked

on the raindrop games as his eyebrows go up. Uses the keypad

and the enter button to play the game as he bites on his lips to

complete the task. He does a good job solving all the problems

and raising his eyebrows each time he does. Once the problem

gets harder it takes him longer to get it and lets out signs when

he gets them wrong. Got confused and bored with the game and

quit. Task ended at 7:42

Testing Conclusions

The test conclusions were exactly what I thought they would be. You can really tell

when a person has low and high experience with the Internet. My dad got flustered

really easy and was not able to complete many of the tasks at all but Jeff Zeller was

able to complete all but one of the tasks that I gave him. Jeff Zeller was able to get

the tasks done fairly easy and quick. Where as my dad’s attempt at the tasks were

made quick he just didn’t complete them. They both were typical men when they

were given three minutes on the site they go straight to the sports section of the

page and focus mainly on that part of the website without scrolling through any of

the other pages on the site. I agree with the textbook in the fact that the usability of

the website and the experience of the user depend on each other to a point. To be
able to get pretty decent usability you must be better than a low-experience web

user so that you understand the way the web works.

 Efficiency: The efficiency of this website is not that good. There were

some tasks that Jeff Zeller was able to get completed on the first try

but all of them usually took both Zeller and my dad at least a few

attempts at it before they got the task completed. The New York

Times can do better at making it user friendly and easy to locate what

they want to find. Especially in the search engine part. In some of the

tasks I thought it shouldn’t be that hard in order to look up what they

wanted to find. And I thought that their searches were pretty too the

point of what they were looking for and the site did not even bring up

anything close to what they were trying to locate. You almost have to

be a frequent user of the website to be able to complete the tasks first

try.

 Errors: Both users made quite a bit of errors while trying to complete

their tasks. More so my dad more than Zeller because there were links

that were taking him outside of the website and to another website or

into another window. They both would click on quite a few different

links and headlines that lead them to something that was completely

different. I would say that both of the users were having trouble

avoiding errors while trying to complete the tasks.