Usability

Formal
Report
Big Talbot Island
Stephanie Neil
Stephanie Giordano
Sarah Saz

University of North Florida

 Table of
Contents
Executive Summary......................................................2
Introduction...................................................................3
Methodology..................................................................4
Findings and Recommendations................................5
Problem 1: Big Talbot is Not Very Accessible.....5
Recommendation 1: Removal and Disposal of
Hazards....................................................................5
Problem 2: Navigation.............................................6
Recommendation 2: Instructional Guidelines..6
Problem 3: Audio was Not Visible..........................7
Recommendation 3: Audio Enhancement.........7
Problem 4: Spheres weren't Connected...............7
Recommendation 4: Web VR Enhancement.....7
Conclusion......................................................................8
References......................................................................9

1
 Executive
Summary
This report details a usability study conducted by
Stephanie Giordano, Sarah Saz, and Stephanie Neil, who are
the University of North Florida undergraduate students in
the applied technical writing class during Fall 2022. This
usability study is based on a 360-degree Virtual Reality and
Audio Visual experience that portrayed the conditions of
Big Talbot Island State Park in Jacksonville, Florida.

The 360-degree virtual reality and the audio-visual

experience were reviewed by four volunteers who shared
their thoughts and opinions on the experience. They
expressed the positives and negatives of both the
experience and Big Talbot Island State Park in itself. This
report highlights the major findings and recommendations
after the usability interviews were conducted. The findings
include the thoughts and opinions of the participants and
the recommendations include our proposal on our
acknowledgments of how we can improve our experience
and how Big Talbot Island can fix its accessibility issues.

The four primary recommendations are to:

1. Remove and dispose of hazards on the Big Talbot Island
trail
2. Provide instructional guidelines to users for the 360-
degree virtual reality and audio-visual experience
3. Make the audio within the web VR and AR experience
more visual
4. Make web 360-degree VR experience more connective
and interactive

2
 Introduction
This report is intended to serve as a guide to
facilitate the development of the Virtual Reality and
Audio Visual 360-degree of Big Talbot Island State
Park located in Jacksonville, Florida. The experience
was intended to showcase the accessibility issues
of the environment, thus providing users with the
opportunity to decide whether or not the location
would be accessible for themselves or those with
disabilities. To analyze if the experience did what it
was intended, an observation was conducted with
four volunteers that used the experience and
offered their thoughts and opinions.

Our group used the valuable insights from our

volunteers to explain the findings and emphasize
recommendations that could be made to enhance
our Virtual Reality and Audio Visual 360-degree of
Big Talbot Island State Park. Our evidence through
the usability testing overall highlighted how Big
Talbot Island State Park has accessibility issues and
we recommended ample suggestions for fixing
these issues. In addition, this report suggests the
positives and negatives of our VR and AR
experience help us strengthen the intentions of the
experience.

3
 Methodology
Moderated in-person user testing has been
proven to be an efficient and beneficial
methodology for conducting usability research.
As a group, we recruited four individuals for user
testing, all of whom experienced various kinds of
accessibility issues. We sat down with the four
participants separately and explained the
purpose of our Web VR, encouraging them to
vocalize their opinions and provide us with any
positive or negative feedback they had while
going through our experience. Due to technical
difficulties, our group used both Story Sphere and
Google Sphere to create the Web VR on Big Talbot
Island State Park. After pulling these spheres up
on our laptops for our users, we observed the
users while simultaneously playing the audio
recordings to our users as they moved through
the spheres. While going through the spheres they
also provided us with their thoughts and opinions,
which we took notes of.

After the participants finished the Web VR, we

asked them fifteen questions relating to the
spheres, audio, and their experience as a whole.
After concluding these four sessions, we compiled
our usability research to analyze our findings and
address the problems that our users endured.
Then we use that helpful information to conclude
with four recommendations and suggestions to
enhance our experience and the Big Talbot State
Parks accessibility issues.

4
Findings and
Recommendations
Here is what we found during
our Web VR experiences:

Problem 1: Users found that the Web VR was educational about

the conditions and accessibility of the trails and concluded that
they would not visit Talbot under the current circumstances.

The Problem: After the participants experienced Web VR, they

expressed positive feedback in regard how to the spheres and
audio were educational and informative. Users concluded that
the experience was helpful in making their decision on whether
they would visit Talbot or not considering their own personal
ailments or circumstances. Based on the virtual reality that the
users got to use, all four of them felt that while they would
ideally like to visit the unique Talbot Island, the conditions of
the trails would make it too difficult for them to access without
strain or injury. For instance, one user stated, "Yes, as someone
with a broken leg, I would decide against coming here because
of the terrain, in particular, it just seems like it would be too
difficult to get through with my crutches." Our other
participants, including an elderly person and a mother to an
infant, also felt that due to the driftwood and debris blocking
the trail access to the beach, it would not be in their best
interest to visit Talbot Island. However, three out of the four
participants did express excitement at the idea of potentially
going in the future, due to our Web VR experience.

Recommendation 1: Removal and Disposal of Hazards (as seen

in VR)
We recommend, with approval from Florida State Parks, the
proper removal and disposal of debris and dead tree logs from
the entrance and exits to the beach. This task alone would open
up these areas, making it easier for visitors to move through,
especially for those that already have a difficult time tracking
through the sand and trail as is.

5
 Findings and
Recommendations
continued
Problem 2: Users found the Web VR challenging to navigate
due to their lack of knowledge and experience.

The Problem: During the Web VR trial with one of our

participants, they were struggling to navigate Google Spheres.
It was difficult due to the lack of knowledge the user had on
computers and google itself. Since we could not answer any
questions during the trial, our user struggled to move around
the sphere itself. While observing, the user expressed
frustration toward the electronics. After the trial and during the
interview one of our questions was: "What would you say
about this VR experience, was it user-friendly, and did you
learn something new?" To which our participant responded:
"No it was not user-friendly since no instruction was
provided on how to move the photographs, I had to figure it
out myself." Although after figuring out how to navigate the
sphere, our user was content and able to move through the
spheres at a faster rate.

Recommendation 2: Instructional Guidelines

Give the users more instructions on how to use the applications

beforehand. The application should have come with a set of
instructions and should have been mentioned in the beginning.
Or even demonstrate how to use the Web VR experience.
6
Findings and
Recommendations
Continued
Problem 3: The audio on Story Sphere was easy to
miss.

The problem: During one of these experiments, one

of the users missed the audio in the first sphere.
They completely missed it due to the fact of it
blended in with the background of the 360 photo
itself. The user did go back and find it afterward
since they remembered that there was supposed to
be audio to go along with the experience. The audio
was helpful to understand exactly what they were
doing so it is a key component of the experience.

Recommendation 3: Audio Enhancement

If we were able to do more testing, we would
suggest that the audio be highlighted, enlarged, or
put at the very beginning of the Story Sphere.

Problem 4: VR experience could have been a walk-

through instead of "jumping" from place to place
(within the sphere).
The problem: The user did find the experience "fun"
and "helpful" to understand what our main
concerns were, but thought it would be more
helpful if it could have been an entire walkthrough
of the entire trail, highlighting and showing more of
the problems with accessibility.

Recommendation 4: Web VR Enhancement

Alter the Web VR experience so that it can be an
entire walkthrough and can be more useful to our
users.

7
 Conclusion
This report on the usability of 360-degree
virtual reality and audio-visual experience
illustrates the findings and recommendations
of the experience through the observational
thoughts and opinions of four volunteers that
fit our demographic of elderly or accessibility
issue personnel. Through the understanding of
the analyses, we have summarized our findings
and recommendations to outline the best
suggestions for the 360-degree virtual reality
and audio-visual experience of Big Talbot
Island State Park in Jacksonville Florida.
We believe that implementing a plan to
respond to these four recommendations will
solve the major usability issues that we
identified in this study. We acknowledge our
Story Sphere problems with audio and visual
issues and the site not working when trying to
conduct the usability interviews, however,
these suggestions are helpful within our Web
VR experience and enhancing Big Talbot Island
State Park. The test solidified the accessibility
issues that Big Talbot has and we used that to
come up with a way to fix the issues. We also
found that our usability of the virtual reality
and audio-visual experience overall needed
more connectivity through the trail and to
make the audio more eye-catching. Thank you
for taking the time to read the results of our
experience!

8
 References

"Big Talbot Island

State Park." Florida
State Parks
https://www.floridasta
teparks.org/big-talbot- "Discover Street View
island-state-park and Contribute Your
own Imagery to
Google Maps."
Google, Google,
https://www.google.c
Story Spheres. om/streetview/.
https://storyspher
es.com/

9
Contact us
Email:
N01440775@unf.edu