Out of Class / In-Class Usability Tests

Script

Hello! Thanks so much for coming out today. We really appreciate it. How’s your day going?

I work for Wut The Fork, and we’re testing out a new website to find out how well it performs. 

Although this is called a usability test, don’t worry- you are not being tested. We are testing how well the website performs, so you can’t be wrong today.

I want you to know that I am not the designer, so please feel free to speak freely and honestly. 

I encourage you to think out loud. This will help me to understand your thought process better. 

So first, I’m going to have you take a look at the homepage. 

When you first look at this page, what do you think is the site's purpose and the purpose of the business?

What do you think the main sections of the website are?

If you were visiting this site, where would you start? What would you do first?

Q1: If your parents are coming into town and you want to find a restaurant with an outdoor patio, live music and happy hour specials, how would you find your options that meet these criteria?

Q2: Imagine you own a restaurant and would like to create a new business profile on our website. How would you go about doing that?

Q2: Imagine you are a bar owner and you’ve decided to change your happy hour schedule. How would you update that information on our website?

Follow-Up Questions:

*Chance to ask why they did certain things the way they did.

Our site aims to be an all-inclusive resource where people can find all the information they need about bars and restaurants in Columbus using search terms to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Did you understand this purpose after using our site?

Could you foresee any instances where you might need to leave our website to find the information you’re looking for?

User 1: Results

If the user wants to be able to search for a restaurant/bar by name, then there should be a search bar that is easy to find with a clear purpose. (this will be reflected in our final prototype)

If the user is unsure of what is meant by "log in", then perhaps that needs to be better expressed. For example, "business owner log in".

If the user wants to save places for later, then there should be functionality for them to do so. (Because of time restraints, we have decided we can't fully add this functionality and will stay with the more basic usage).

Overall, this user hit on a lot of the same issues and problems that our in-class users mentioned. This is due mainly in part to the fact that our classmates fall within our target user demographic. Many of these issues have been resolved for our final prototype, with only a few being left as-is due to time and talent restraints. Color and design should also help make some of these tasks more clear.

User 2: Results

If the user wants to search for a bar/restaurant by search terms then they are able to use the search box options on the main page.

If the user wants to search for a specific restaurant directly, for example to see if it has live music that night, then there should be an obvious search box located on the main page.

If the user is confused about the log-in and create accounts links, then these links could be more specific or combined into just one link for logging in and creating an account.

If the user does not immediately recognize the purpose of the site when arriving at the main page, more food and drink related images or a tag line briefly explaining the site can be added tot he front page.

After completing the usability tests, our second user generally did not have many problems navigating the site. They did however, encounter some of the same problems experienced in our other usability tests. These problems were easy to correct, for example adding images and icons to make the purpose of the site more clear, and we believe many of them have been resolved in the finalized version of our click-able prototype.

User 3: Results

If the user is unsure what the purpose of the site is within a reasonable amount of time on the home page, then implementing images and hierarchy could help inform the user of the purpose of the site.

If the user wants to find information on a specific restaurant or bar, then we must be sure to include a search box or keyword entry box in our search graphic.

If the user is confused between the top navigation and the side navigation, then adding more functionality, hierarchy, or content could help clear up confusion regarding the purpose of each navigation bar.

This user was able to navigate the site fairly easily generally, but had some issues with identifying the purpose of the site at first. They were unsure about what the site's goal was, and at first only knew it had to do with searching something. They had a few problems with understanding the graphics, especially with the lack of a keyword box in our search box. Revisions on the graphics should help clarify and fix these issues. There was also a bit of confusion about what the purpose was of having two "navigation bars", especially since the left bar seemed to overlap a bit with the main search box's purpose. This was a problem we had previously encountered, and should be able to be solved. Using functionality might help us to suggest the purpose of the side bar, while clearing up links in the top navigation might clarify what other page options there are.

In-Class User: Results

• User was unsure of why a search bar would be necessary
• User did not not think that links for businesses should  be in the top navigation bar
• Purpose of site was not apparent as quickly as it could be
• User really liked quick links/lists on the side where she could quickly see what's open now, trending, etc.
• User realized that on the "create bus. profile page" - there's no place to create a username and password, so how can you log in to edit your page
• User did not know how to submit her own bar/restaurant review
• User was concerned what a bar/restaurant owner would do if their musical acts/specials change from one week to the next

If the user is unsure of the purpose of a search bar, perhaps the location of the search bar doesn't make the most sense for usability purposes.

If the user is not a business owner, then they may be confused/frustrated by the business-related links at the top of the page. May want to move those links to a different location.

If the user is unsure of the site's purpose, then a slogan would be helpful that gets the purpose across at a glance.

If the user really appreciates the quick links, then we should keep those as is or make them even more prominent on the page.

If the user is unable to create a username or password, then we need to add a section to the 'create profile page' where they can choose a username/PW.

If the user wants to submit reviews but doesn't know how, then we need to add a 'write review' button to the site. Probably in the same area as the other reviews, or possibly it's own nav link as well.

If an owner has changing specials/music and doesn't know how to express that on their profile, then we need to have an 'upcoming events' section where they can add non-recurring events/specials.

Usability Test 2

Hello! Thanks so much for coming out today. We really appreciate it. How’s your day going?

I work for Wut The Fork, and we’re testing out a new website to find out how well it performs. 

Although this is called a usability test, don’t worry- you are not being tested. We are testing how well the website performs, so you can’t be wrong today.

I want you to know that I am not the designer, so please feel free to speak freely and honestly. 

I encourage you to think out loud. This will help me to understand your thought process better. 

So first, I’m going to have you take a look at the homepage. 

When you first look at this page, what do you think is the site's purpose and the purpose of the business?

What do you think the main sections of the website are?

If you were visiting this site, where would you start? What would you do first?

Q1: If your parents are coming into town and you want to find a restaurant with an outdoor patio, live music and happy hour specials, how would you find your options that meet these criteria?

Q2: Imagine you own a restaurant and would like to create a new business profile on our website. How would you go about doing that?

Q2: Imagine you are a bar owner and you’ve decided to change your happy hour schedule. How would you update that information on our website?

Follow-Up Questions:

*Chance to ask why they did certain things the way they did.

Our site aims to be an all-inclusive resource where people can find all the information they need about bars and restaurants in Columbus using search terms to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Did you understand this purpose after using our site?

Could you foresee any instances where you might need to leave our website to find the information you’re looking for?

Summary of Test Results

Not all of our links are clickable, which may be confusing for the user as several of them are going to be repeating links. More of the links will be clickable in the final prototype

If the user has a specific place in mind then there should be a search bar for them to directly type in a bar/restaurant name rather than going through search terms

If the user does not have a specific location in mind, then they can either use the quick links on the left hand side or the search terms in the main page
Some users were more focused on the side bar than the main search area, me may want to use design/colors etc. to draw more attention to the main search area

Some users indicated that they might want to save locations for later (if they thought the profile was interesting and may want to visit it in the future) or save places that they have been and really liked. We may add a bookmarking feature feature similar to Pinterest or something like that

If the user is a business owner, they may have trouble locating the link to login to change their business profile. We may want to make the link for editing a business profile separate from a general login link so that it is very clear to the user where to go

Usability Testing Plan for Clickable Wireframes

• Where can we find 3-5 individuals to test our website on?
• Because our target demographic mainly includes people our own age, we will likely just ask friends or family to test our website. We could also consider talking to some local restaurant and bar owners to get an idea of the ease of use of our sign up pages for business owners.
  
• How will we solicit people's help?
• We will likely ask a few of our friends in person to test our site. Outside of that, we may send out emails to other students at OSU to see if they would also like to participate in our test.
  
• How has the site changed since our paper-prototype?
• The overall structure of our site has changed very little as compared to our paper prototype.  We still plan to have essentially the same layout structure for our pages that we laid out in the paper prototype. We thought more about the content in each section and we added this content to our click-able prototype. We anticipate that some size changes and slight re-arrangement may be needed once we begin to add more content and images to the pages.
  
• What differences do we foresee in usability testing between the paper wireframe and this current version of our wireframe?
• Because we will be adding more content, such as images and descriptions, to some areas, there may be more information for people to sort though and therefore they may have slightly more difficultly finding what they want. However, we hope to minimize any confusion by creating a fairly clean main page where the main focus is the search feature and by ensuring that any additional content on the front page does not make it too cluttered. 
• We also may also make it more immediately clear what the purpose of the website is by adding more images to the front page and including logos, etc. This will increase ease of use and how quickly the user can find what they are looking for.

Usability Testing Script

Hello! Thanks so much for coming out today. We really appreciate it. How’s your day going?

I work for Wut The Fork, and we’re testing out a new website to find out how well it performs. 

Although this is called a usability test, don’t worry- you are not being tested. We are testing how well the website performs, so you can’t be wrong today.

I want you to know that I am not the designer, so please feel free to speak freely and honestly. 

I encourage you to think out loud. This will help me to understand your thought process better. 

So first, I’m going to have you take a look at the homepage. 

When you first look at this page, what do you think is the site's purpose and the purpose of the business?

What do you think the main sections of the website are?

If you were visiting this site, where would you start? What would you do first?

Q1: If you were a college student at Ohio State looking to find the contact information for La Fogata (a restaurant), how would you get that information?

Q2: If your parents are coming into town and you want to find a restaurant with an outdoor patio, live music and happy hour specials, how would you find your options that meet these criteria?

Q3: Imagine you own a restaurant and would like to create a new business profile on our website. How would you go about doing that?

Q4: Imagine you are a bar owner and you’ve decided to change your happy hour schedule. How would you update that information on our website?

Follow-Up Questions:

*Chance to ask why they did certain things the way they did.

Our site aims to be an all-inclusive resource where people can find all the information they need about bars and restaurants in Columbus using search terms to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Did you understand this purpose after using our site?

Could you foresee any instances where you might need to leave our website to find the information you’re looking for?


Summary of Findings:

If the website's purpose is not immediately apparent from looking at the homepage, we may want to utilize images to convey the concept and lay out the search terms in a way so that it's obvious what we want our users to do.

Currently, there is a good emphasis on the search feature, which makes the user want to go there first and play around with his/her options.

If the user isn't immediately sure how to directly search for an individual bar/restaurant, we may want to draw more attention to this feature by moving its location or referencing it in a different way, such as "search" instead of "keyterms".

The user quickly realized how to register a bar/restaurant for the first time as a business owner. The user also knew how to log in to update her existing profile information.

After playing around on the site, the user felt that the overall purpose of the website is clear.

The user felt that she may need to leave our website if a restaurant or bar didn't have a profile listed and she was looking for that one in particular.

We also realized that we need to have a "profile" button on our site so that users can navigate back to their profile at any time during their visit.

Wireframes

Home Page

About Page

Profile Pages

Login Page - for an existing account

Editing a profile or adding information after creating a new profile

Set-up for a New Account

Pop-up After Creating a New Account

Paper Wire Frames

Home Page:

Orange box will be a quick view window that appears when you click on a restaurant/bar in your results page. From that quick view window, there will be a "full profile" button, which will take you to a separate page with the complete information for that establishment.

Navigation on the side will allow for broader, quick searches, such as trending, events, locations and reviews.

Full profile page:

Site Map Diagram

Site Map

Identity Strategy

Business Name:Wut The Fork

• Catchy, humorous
• Implies "food" theme
• Edgy
• Unique
• Blog name was available

Web Site Tagline:
Logo:

• Somehow utilize a fork in the F or "Fork"?
• Rough draft ideas below:

URL/Domain Name:

• wutthefork.com is available

EMail: 

• info@wutthefork.com

Facebook Name: 

• Wut the Fork

Other Social Media:

• Twitter: @WutTheFork - available (we think?)

Competitor Analysis

As Is Analyses

Yelp

1. Visibility of system status

• When entering selections the page, there is a slight delay between the selection being made and it displaying on the screen. During this time a loading logo will come up (reflecting the yelp logo) on the screen and no more choices can be made until the site is done processing your previous choice
• the logo is animated to tell you it is working
• Navigating between other pages moves quickly and does not require a loading icon

2. Match between system and real world

• The language is easy to understand and follow and does not hinder navigation of the site
• The language will change if you select a different country on the front page. This was actually kind of confusing because if I travel to a different country I would still want to see everything in English. There is also an option to change the country in the search bar which does not change the language.

3. User control and freedom

• It is easy enough to search the site to find what you want however, one you're in a business' profile, there is not "return to results" button, so if you click around within the profile you may have to hit back several times in order to get back to your original search
• A nice feature is the sidebar where it lists other places people have looked at after looking at that business' profile page
• can also search for things near the place you're looking (like shopping places near a restaurant you want to go to etc)
• Searches allow you to enter any number of things into the bar itself and filter them on the search page
• these filtering options do not come up until after you enter your original search terms

4. Consistency and standards

• Some search features don't seem to always work perfectly, for example, filtering results by highest rating did not actually put the results in order according to highest number of stars. It was unclear how they were actually sorted
• Business' profile pages all had the same format which made it easy to quickly find basic information like location, hours, etc.
• unfortunately there was no way to compare places to one another

5. Error prevention

• I did not encounter any broken links
• All links seemed to pretty much go where I would expect them to go and did not navigate to anything unexpected 
• I liked that the only links that navigated away from yelp were the links leading to a business' website, this made it easier to move throughout the site without worrying about accidentally getting sucked into another website

6. Recognition rather than recall

• Most information is listed in a nice condensed list once you click on a profile - doesn't require scrolling or going to a different page to see different information

7. Flexibility and efficiency of use

• I think the front page would be significantly better if the "best of Columbus" section were at the top instead of random recent reviews for various places ("recent activity"). It would also be nice to have the Columbus neighborhoods closer to the top instead of at the bottom of the page in case you don't know exactly what you want but maybe you want to look in a specific location in Columbus. Experienced users may only use the search bar at the stop of the page but others might want to look at pre-made lists to help their searches.

8. Aesthetic and minimalist design

• The site seems to have a lot going on - especially because it is based on user reviews there is a lot of text, especially on the front page, that make it seem cluttered and difficult to read through and find what you're looking for
• The side bar on the right side may be a lot of the problem - the information sees useful but it would be helpful if it were spaced farther away from the main page or if the side bar it was in were a different color of some sort so everything didn't blend together so much.
• Not very many pictures - the ones that were there were very small
• I'd personally like to see larger pictures related to the business across the top (instead of the tiny ones that are there) and smaller pictures of the people reviewing things (I don't care what these people look like and am not sure why they have a picture at all - if I want to see who they are I will click on their name to go to their profile)

9. Error identification/recovery

• I did not run into any error messages while navigating the site

10. Help and documentation

• The main links for more help related information were neatly listed at the bottom of the pages
• the FAQ page was terribly laid out and was just several columns of questions under subcategories - very busy and hard to find what you're looking for
• most other help pages were laid out better and were more user friendly

Usability Analysis

This website was review based and had a lot of good information which was generally pretty easy to navigate. Overall, my biggest problems included: the layouts of the pages which were too busy and had too many words to look through without enough pictures, the search features that did not always seem to work quite right, and the poor quality of the front page of the site. However, I did like the search features , although I would have liked to see more, and I liked the way they condensed the information to the top of the profile pages for each business.

Experience Columbus

1. Visibility of System Status

• With the navigation bars at the top and along the side, it is pretty easy to know where you are located within the website, which is helpful for this site, considering it has a variety of topics to explore between. 
• The site switches between pages and searches within a reasonable amount of time. I was not left wondering what was taking so long or wishing a page would load faster. 

2. Match Between System and the Real World

• The site uses words in English, but there is no easy to find option to use other languages. 
• All language on the site is pretty easy to understand; there isn't really any lingo that would be unknown to an average visitor. 
• Pictures help users connect information on the screen to real life scenarios. 

3. User Control and Freedom

• It's pretty easy to understand where you're navigating to on the website before you click on anything. However, once you click on something, it's hard to know where exactly you just came from unless you click the previous page button on your browser. 
• No way to decide whether or not you want to backtrack or how far you need to go back before going back a page. 
• No reverse navigation on the page, only possible by browser most of the time. 

4. Consistency and Standards

• Commands, links, and phrases are all straightforward and standard. 
• One thing that was strange was that on the home page, the scrolling banner would have a link that said "read more" which usually means there is a linked article. However, this would simply take you to either a search bar specific to that topic, a list of events, etc. 

5. Error Prevention

• Errors were few and far between. One thing I did struggle with, was that at one point I had opted to add some further search parameters to my food search, such as location and restaurant type, and no results were returned. Then I tried to uncheck these additional parameters, but after searching again, it had kept the parameters that I had just tried to erase. The only way to get it to stop was to completely start over at the home page and try again, this time with more success. 
• When this error did occur, there was no message or anything to notify me that things were not going as planned, but rather I found out myself. 

6. Recognition Rather than Recall

• Most options for navigation are visible to the visitor, and like I've already said, links are fairly straightforward. 
• The option to add restaurants or activities to your "itinerary" is pretty interesting and helpful, and is kept on the screen in the top banner. However, to see what you added you have to click and go to another page which lists your chosen activities 

7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use

• There is an option to sign in as a "member", but I'm not entirely sure what this would do, or if it would necessarily accelerate the interaction for a seasoned user. 

8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design

• There is a pretty even amount of information on the site so that I, as a user, do not feel as if I'm being bombarded with information on everything. However, some areas may be a bit sparse on the information provided, leaving me to continue hunting for information on certain restaurants. 
• Enough hierarchy that I can tell what is relevant or irrelevant to my needs. Easy to quickly scan for needed information. 

9. Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors

• When I did have the only error I came across, I did not receive an error message or any instructions on how to recover. This might just be a user error rather than a website error, but either way, the only way I was able to recover was from completely restarting my searches. 

10. Help and Documentation

• The general information for the business running the website was displayed in the footer of every page. 
• I was unable to find a link to a page that provided help for users on the website, or answers to questions/problems users might have when visiting the site. 

Usability Analysis:

While the website is pretty straightforward, easy to understand, and easy to navigate, there was still a sense of inconsistency. When I searched for a restaurant, some of the results would come up with pictures, and some would not; some would provide a small blurb about the restaurant and some would require clicking on the link to visit the restaurant's profile in order to gather more information. When I did experience an issue with the search function, I was unable to figure out the problem and had to start my search over again from the home page, which would've been really frustrating if I had been trying to search something for a long time and had just found it, or had spent a lot of time searching before realizing that an error had been essentially nullifying all of my search efforts. Decent website and experience as a user, but I think it needs a little more polish to seem totally professional.

Urban Spoon

1. Visibility of System Status

• The site seems to be a little bit sluggish, especially as it is filtering your search results.
• The site is so crammed-full of information that it is a little bit hard to grasp what you're looking at or what results your clicking might have.

2. Match Between System and the Real World

• While the site truly provides lots of valuable information, there is too much crammed onto the home page. The way the home page is laid out is not logical, and leaves the user scanning the page, unsure of what exactly they're looking at. 
• There's really no clear sense of hierarchy, so it's hard to make sense of the information to find what you're looking for.

3. User Control and Freedom

• There are so many links on this website (and it's not totally clear where clicking on the link will take you), so it's easy to quickly get way off-base from where you hoped to be.
• It can be a bit confusing to find your way back to the information you want using the links on the page, however the back-button in the browser seems to do that trick, although that can be a little time consuming depending how many wrong clicks have been made.

4. Consistency and Standards

• After messing around on the site a little bit, it seems like users can begin to anticipate what links will take you where.
• For example, any link that is the name of an establishment will take you to that establishment's profile page.
• Any time you click on a descriptive keyword, such as "burgers" or "American", it will automatically enter that as a key word and filter your results by that term, providing you a list of restaurants within that category. It can be a bit confusing, though, if the term is "drink specials" and you click on it thinking that it will provide more detail, when in fact, it brings up a whole new list of restaurants with drink specials.

5. Error Prevention

• For the extremely high number of links present on this site, the functionality seems to be pretty good. I didn't come across any broken links or error messages while exploring the site.
• One thing that we did notice in class, however, was that my screen and Nicole's screen were displaying differently even after we clicked on the same things. It seems like this site might just be so chaotic and complex that it is difficult to fine-tune exactly what results you will be seeing.
• Another minor thing I noticed was that some links take you away from the Urban Spoon site, whereas other open up in new windows, which I would imagine to be the preferred method so as not to allow people to easily navigate away from your site.

6. Recognition Rather than Recall

• There are some good features at work on this site, such as the use of the logo in the top right corner which links to the home screen and the presence of the search bar at the very top of the screen as part of the banner. Those are functions that users come to expect, so it's good to have those in an easy to see and understand place.
• The site absolutely makes all of the user's options visible, by listing out long groups of search options and tons of reviews/ratings etc. I think the site could actually benefit from having less information available right off-the-bat, but I guess they do a good job of laying out all of the information for the user to see so that they don't have to sift through too many pages to find what they're looking for.

7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use

• Although I am not totally sure what this heuristic is referring to (which must mean I'm a novice user!), I don't notice any ways in which this website could be tailored to each user's unique needs.

8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design

• As I've previously mentioned, there are great amounts of information on this website and it is all competing with each other so that there is no clear distinction between what information is important and what is less important.
• I think this site could benefit from shorter lists and words, perhaps more drop down menus rather than fully-visible lists and there are hardly any images on the site, and the ones that exist are small and insignificant. These are things we'd like to improve on for our site.

9. Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors

• I did not come across any error messages while using the site, so I guess that's a good sign!

10. Help and Documentation

• Again, I'm not totally sure what this heuristic is referencing, but I did see a section for FAQs on the bottom of the site, which can often be helpful when dealing with problems/issues.

Usability Analysis:

Overall, I think that this site has great information and potential functionality, but the way it is designed is not doing it justice. It could be much more user friendly by not bombarding the users with every piece of information all at once. They could stand to add a lot of white space to their pages, opening them up and making them less cluttered with tons of words and links. The use of larger pictures would also make the site prettier to look at and would help direct your eyes around the page. Overall, I really just don't know where to look first and am overwhelmed by the homepage.

Consensus:

Between the three websites that we analyzed, there was a lot of really great content and features. Two were large websites that operate on a national scale while one had a local focus on Columbus and its neighborhoods. Even though each website had a lot of great ideas about content, functionality and features, these ideas began to fall apart due to a lack of good, clear, consistent design. Whether it was a lack of consistency throughout the site that left the user unsure of what they were even experiencing, or a flood of information coming at the user all at once, leaving them feeling lost and a bit confused (and perhaps even tired), utilization of simple design principles could help take each website to the next level, both aesthetically and functionally.

Although the content differs between Yelp and Urban spoon, they both have similar presentations. With home pages filled with information and clickable links, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the amount of options available to you at first glance. The hard thing about this problem, is that you don't want to take options away from the user. Instead, it is important to organize the information in a way that communicates with the user and helps them find what it is they're looking for without throwing a lot of side information in the way that is irrelevant to the user's end-goal.

Experience Columbus provides a more appropriate amount of information, but might come across as slightly unprofessional. The information is well organized, and the user is able to easily locate information relevant to their needs, but once you get a little further into the site, specific pages lack in the type/amount of information provided for events, venues, or restaurants. Even though the site is well polished on the surface, the lack of consistency may leave the user questioning how reliable, relevant, or up-to-date of information.

For our website, it will be crucial to utilize hierarchy and theme in order to avoid the major pitfalls of these three sites. Using hierarchy will help not only organize information throughout the website as a whole, but will help us organize information on each individual webpage, directing the user's attention to specific areas that will help them find desired information without bombarding them with irrelevant information. Also, the use of a theme will help promote uniformity across the entire site, providing a sense of professionalism, but a lot of the work will also come with making sure each page lines up with its stylistic layout and includes appropriate information.

Research Analysis

Survey Results

• We created a Google survey which we used to target a large group of people in our target demographic (approximately ages 16 - 35)
• We received approximately 40 responses
• Overall, the responses indicated that people went out for both drinks and food on a fairly regular basis (most answers were either occasionally or frequently) and almost all (95%) responses indicated that they would like to learn more about new or popular restaurants or bars near them.
• About 80% or our survey takers noted that they occasionally have trouble deciding on a place that they would like to go out to
• When asked which information was most important when deciding where to go out, the results were fairly split but the top responses were:
• location
• menu
• price
• parking
• hours
• Only 37% of the surveyed group had never used a site like urbanspoon or yelp to help make a decision when going out
• Of this group, the majority didn't use these sites because they forgot about them
• People who did use sites like urban spoon or yelp were also asked to list the features they found most and least helpful
• Most helpful
• Search-ability
• listing the information in one place
• ratings/reviews from actual people
• 
  
• Least Helpful
• not enough information
• no pictures 
• difficult to narrow down choices when searching
• overwhelming amounts of information
• not comprehensive enough in terms of all kinds of restaurants
• also may not include "mom and pop" or smaller restaurants - too dominated by big chains
• In addition, most people did not have a particularly hard time finding what they were looking for if they were looking for something specific
• it was easy to find larger, especially chain restaurants, but much more difficult to find new or lesser know places
• many people also found the amount of text on one page a bit too much
• 48% of people also had to go to a different site in addition to the one they were originally using to get all the info they were looking for
• mostly for the menu, hours, or to find lesser known places not included in the larger site

Personal Interviews

• We each conducted personal interviews to add to our collection of information
• our interviewees included:
• 2 female college seniors
• 1 male college sophomore 
• 1 male recent graduate (within 5 years)
• When choosing a restaurant the most important deciding factors were:
• reviews/quality of food
• specials
• When choosing a bar to go out to the most important factors were:
• location
• specials
• atmosphere/entertainment
• Our interviewees went out to restaurants with varying frequency - most went out either once a week or every other week and one went as often as 3-4 times a week
• Similarly our interviewees went to bars with vary frequency as well. The range included 1-2 times a week , about once a week, a few times a month and 0 times a week (almost never)
• When going out, most did not look at reviews  but did ask for recommendations from family and friends. One however, looked at reviews almost every time
• Those that did look up reviews or other information before hand usually just googled it
• They specifically looked at the location's website about half the time
• The information that they were specifically looking for included the location's hours,  prices, and menu
• Everyone noted that they often made plans or looked for places very last minute. When they did plan ahead they noted that often their plans would change and they would end up looking for things last minute anyway
• Our responders did not find existing sites (like yelp or urban-spoon) particularly helpful. One noted that they "kind of suck"
• they often simply did not have the information they were looking for, it wasn't organized well enough to be helpful last minute, or didn't work well enough
• The majority of our people thought that they would like to see and would use a website to find the info they wanted when going out if there were a better option

Analysis

Overall, our research indicates that the most important aspect of our website will be the search functionality. This must be comprehensive and include the whole range of restaurant and bar locations that the columbus area has to offer. Our research also points us to pay careful attention to new or lesser known locations as those are often the most difficult to find on the other sites that are already available. In addition, our website must include all pertinent information, specifically including location, hours, specials, menu price, parking, ratings and reviews, and atmosphere/entertainment in an easy to read and not overly-cluttered format. Our group may also consider doing a mobile site because a number of our responses indicated that they tend to do things last minute, which might include while they are already out or are away from a computer.

Secondary Persona

Primary Persona

Affinity Diagram Activity

We evaluated the Blocks 4 Mentorship team.

Ours before:

Ours after:

As Is Analysis: Yelp

   1. Visibility of system status

• When entering selections the page, there is a slight delay between the selection being made and it displaying on the screen. During this time a loading logo will come up (reflecting the yelp logo)  on the screen and no more choices can be made until the site is done processing your previous choice
• the logo is animated to tell you it is working
• Navigating between other pages moves quickly and does not require a loading icon

   2. Match between system and real world

•  The language is easy to understand and follow and does not hinder navigation of the site
• the language will change if you select a different country on the front page. This was actually kind of confusing because if I travel to a different country I would still want to see everything in English. There is also an option to change the country in the search bar which does not change the language.

   3. User control and freedom

• It is easy enough to search the site to find what you want however, one you're in a business' profile, there is not "return to results" button, so if you click around within the profile you may have to hit back several times in order to get back to your original search
• A nice feature is the sidebar where it lists other places people have looked at after looking at that business' profile page
• can also search for things near the place you're looking (like shopping places near a restaurant you want to go to etc)
• Searches allow you to enter any number of things into the bar itself and filter them on the search page
• these filtering options do not come up until after you enter your original search terms

   4. Consistency and standards

• Some search features don't seem to always work perfectly, for example, filtering results by highest rating did not actually put the results in order according to highest number of stars. It was unclear how they were actually sorted
• Business' profile pages all had the same format which made it easy to quickly find basic information like location, hours, etc.
• unfortunately there was no way to compare places to one another

   5. Error prevention

• I did not encounter any broken links
• All links seemed to pretty much go where I would expect them to go and did not navigate to anything unexpected 
• I liked that the only links that navigated away from yelp were the links leading to a business' website, this made it easier to move throughout the site without worrying about accidentally getting sucked into another website

   6. Recognition rather than recall

• Most information is listed in a nice condensed list once you click on a profile - doesn't require scrolling or going to a different page to see different information

   7. Flexibility and efficiency of use

• I think the front page would be significantly better if the "best of Columbus" section were at the top instead of random recent reviews for various places ("recent activity"). It would also be nice to have the Columbus neighborhoods closer to the top instead of at the bottom of the page in case you don't know exactly what you want but maybe you want to look in a specific location in Columbus. Experienced users may only use the search bar at the stop of the page but others might want to look at pre-made lists to help their searches.

  8. Aesthetic and minimalist design

• The site seems to have a lot going on - especially because it is based on user reviews there is a lot of text, especially on the front page, that make it seem cluttered and difficult to read through and find what you're looking for
• The side bar on the right side may be a lot of the problem - the information sees useful but it would be helpful if it were spaced farther away from the main page or if the side bar it was in were a different color of some sort so everything didn't blend together so much.
• Not very many pictures - the ones that were there were very small
• I'd personally like to see larger pictures related to the business across the top (instead of the tiny ones that are there) and smaller pictures of the people reviewing things (I don't care what these people look like and am not sure why they have a picture at all - if I want to see who they are I will click on their name to go to their profile)

   9. Error identification/recovery

• I did not run into any error messages while navigating the site

   10. Help and documentation

• The main links for more help related information were neatly listed at the bottom of the pages
• the FAQ page was terribly laid out and was just several columns of questions under subcategories - very busy and hard to find what you're looking for
• most other help pages were laid out better and were more user friendly

This website was review based and had a lot of good information which was generally pretty easy to navigate. Overall, my biggest problems included: the layouts of the pages which were too busy and had too many words to look through without enough pictures, the search features that did not always seem to work quite right, and the poor quality of the front page of the site. However, I did like the search features , although I would have liked to see more, and I liked the way they condensed the information to the top of the profile pages for each business. 

As Is Analysis: Experience Columbus

1. Visibility of System Status

• With the navigation bars at the top and along the side, it is pretty easy to know where you are located within the website, which is helpful for this site, considering it has a variety of topics to explore between. 
• The site switches between pages and searches within a reasonable amount of time. I was not left wondering what was taking so long or wishing a page would load faster. 

2. Match Between System and the Real World

• The site uses words in English, but there is no easy to find option to use other languages. 
• All language on the site is pretty easy to understand; there isn't really any lingo that would be unknown to an average visitor. 
• Pictures help users connect information on the screen to real life scenarios. 

3. User Control and Freedom

• It's pretty easy to understand where you're navigating to on the website before you click on anything. However, once you click on something, it's hard to know where exactly you just came from unless you click the previous page button on your browser. 
• No way to decide whether or not you want to backtrack or how far you need to go back before going back a page. 
• No reverse navigation on the page, only possible by browser most of the time. 

4. Consistency and Standards

• Commands, links, and phrases are all straightforward and standard. 
• One thing that was strange was that on the home page, the scrolling banner would have a link that said "read more" which usually means there is a linked article. However, this would simply take you to either a search bar specific to that topic, a list of events, etc. 

5. Error Prevention

• Errors were few and far between. One thing I did struggle with, was that at one point I had opted to add some further search parameters to my food search, such as location and restaurant type, and no results were returned. Then I tried to uncheck these additional parameters, but after searching again, it had kept the parameters that I had just tried to erase. The only way to get it to stop was to completely start over at the home page and try again, this time with more success. 
• When this error did occur, there was no message or anything to notify me that things were not going as planned, but rather I found out myself. 

6. Recognition Rather than Recall

• Most options for navigation are visible to the visitor, and like I've already said, links are fairly straightforward. 
• The option to add restaurants or activities to your "itinerary" is pretty interesting and helpful, and is kept on the screen in the top banner. However, to see what you added you have to click and go to another page which lists your chosen activities 

7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use

• There is an option to sign in as a "member", but I'm not entirely sure what this would do, or if it would necessarily accelerate the interaction for a seasoned user. 

8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design

• There is a pretty even amount of information on the site so that I, as a user, do not feel as if I'm being bombarded with information on everything. However, some areas may be a bit sparse on the information provided, leaving me to continue hunting for information on certain restaurants. 
• Enough hierarchy that I can tell what is relevant or irrelevant to my needs. Easy to quickly scan for needed information. 

9. Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors

• When I did have the only error I came across, I did not receive an error message or any instructions on how to recover. This might just be a user error rather than a website error, but either way, the only way I was able to recover was from completely restarting my searches. 

10. Help and Documentation

• The general information for the business running the website was displayed in the footer of every page. 
• I was unable to find a link to a page that provided help for users on the website, or answers to questions/problems users might have when visiting the site. 

Usability Analysis:

While the website is pretty straightforward, easy to understand, and easy to navigate, there was still a sense of inconsistency. When I searched for a restaurant, some of the results would come up with pictures, and some would not; some would provide a small blurb about the restaurant and some would require clicking on the link to visit the restaurant's profile in order to gather more information. When I did experience an issue with the search function, I was unable to figure out the problem and had to start my search over again from the home page, which would've been really frustrating if I had been trying to search something for a long time and had just found it, or had spent a lot of time searching before realizing that an error had been essentially nullifying all of my search efforts. Decent website and experience as a user, but I think it needs a little more polish to seem totally professional.

As Is Analysis: Urban Spoon

1. Visibility of System Status

• The site seems to be a little bit sluggish, especially as it is filtering your search results.
• The site is so crammed-full of information that it is a little bit hard to grasp what you're looking at or what results your clicking might have.

2. Match Between System and the Real World

• While the site truly provides lots of valuable information, there is too much crammed onto the home page. The way the home page is laid out is not logical, and leaves the user scanning the page, unsure of what exactly they're looking at. 

• There's really no clear sense of hierarchy, so it's hard to make sense of the information to find what you're looking for.

3. User Control and Freedom

• There are so many links on this website (and it's not totally clear where clicking on the link will take you), so it's easy to quickly get way off-base from where you hoped to be.

• It can be a bit confusing to find your way back to the information you want using the links on the page, however the back-button in the browser seems to do that trick, although that can be a little time consuming depending how many wrong clicks have been made.

4. Consistency and Standards

• After messing around on the site a little bit, it seems like users can begin to anticipate what links will take you where.

• For example, any link that is the name of an establishment will take you to that establishment's profile page.

• Any time you click on a descriptive keyword, such as "burgers" or "American", it will automatically enter that as a key word and filter your results by that term, providing you a list of restaurants within that category. It can be a bit confusing, though, if the term is "drink specials" and  you click on it thinking that it will provide more detail, when in fact, it brings up a whole new list of restaurants with drink specials.

5. Error Prevention

• For the extremely high number of links present on this site, the functionality seems to be pretty good. I didn't come across any broken links or error messages while exploring the site.

• One thing that we did notice in class, however, was that my screen and Nicole's screen were displaying differently even after we clicked on the same things. It seems like this site might just be so chaotic and complex that it is difficult to fine-tune exactly what results you will be seeing.

• Another minor thing I noticed was that some links take you away from the Urban Spoon site, whereas other open up in new windows, which I would imagine to be the preferred method so as not to allow people to easily navigate away from your site.

6. Recognition Rather than Recall

• There are some good features at work on this site, such as the use of the logo in the top right corner which links to the home screen and the presence of the search bar at the very top of the screen as part of the banner. Those are functions that users come to expect, so it's good to have those in an easy to see and understand place.

• The site absolutely makes all of the user's options visible, by listing out long groups of search options and tons of reviews/ratings etc. I think the site could actually benefit from having less information available right off-the-bat, but I guess they do a good job of laying out all of the information for the user to see so that they don't have to sift through too many pages to find what they're looking for.

7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use

• Although I am not totally sure what this heuristic is referring to (which must mean I'm a novice user!), I don't notice any ways in which this website could be tailored to each user's unique needs.

8. Aesthetic and Minimalist Design

• As I've previously mentioned, there are great amounts of information on this website and it is all competing with each other so that there is no clear distinction between what information is important and what is less important.

• I think this site could benefit from shorter lists and words, perhaps more drop down menus rather than fully-visible lists and there are hardly any images on the site, and the ones that exist are small and insignificant. These are things we'd like to improve on for our site.

9. Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors

• I did not come across any error messages while using the site, so I guess that's a good sign!

10. Help and Documentation

• Again, I'm not totally sure what this heuristic is referencing, but I did see a section for FAQs on the bottom of the site, which can often be helpful when dealing with problems/issues.

Usability Analysis:

Overall, I think that this site has great information and potential functionality, but the way it is designed is not doing it justice. It could be much more user friendly by not bombarding the users with every piece of information all at once. They could stand to add a lot of white space to their pages, opening them up and making them less cluttered with tons of words and links. The use of larger pictures would also make the site prettier to look at and would help direct your eyes around the page. Overall, I really just don't know where to look first and am overwhelmed by the homepage. 

Re-Evaluated Business Charter

What are the business goals? (What can this company do to facilitate business?)

• Gain notoriety among Columbus community for having a good reputation
• Become the most commonly used website for dining and restaurant searches

Web site Goals

• Intuitive and easy to use
• Easy to find desired information on our site without searching around on other sites
• Aesthetically pleasing and nice to look at
• Clean, simple, open user interface (especially the search tool). Visitors should know what they're doing and how the site is responding
• Be as up-to-date as possible

Users Tasks - What are things they want to accomplish?

• Find basic restaurant and bar info
• Contact info, hours, specials, menus, features, events
• Develop a customized list of restaurants/bars that meets search criteria
• Find relevant reviews on restaurants and bars
• Info on which restaurants are trending/popular and suggestions on where to go to eat/drink

Differentiators

• Complete integration of all necessary information and features
• More extensive business profiles
• Easier to use interactivity with the website and restaurants
• Better search tool

Audience

• Age range is 16-35, primarily college students and young professionals
• People with money to go to bars/restaurants
• People on a tight budget who need to find cheap options when going out
• People who are either new to the city and don't know all the local spots

Behavior

• The type of people who will visit our website are likely to be planners. They'll likely be the leaders of their social circles, making decisions for the group they're with.
• People who have trouble making decisions or narrowing down choices will also find our site useful for making dining choices.

Research Plan

Goals:

1. All relevant information about Columbus bars and restaurants in one place so users don't have to search numerous sites.
2. The site will also present a way for lesser-known bars and restaurants to gain notoriety and exposure within the Columbus community (with the potential for advertising space).
3. The site will be easy to use and navigate and will provide tons of relevant info. in a way that is easy to sift through (using key terms).

Research:

- Each group member will conduct 2 personal interviews a piece to get a feel for how people within our target demographic perceive our ideas.
- We will send out a survey to a larger number of people within our target demographic to gain a broader range of data to reference when creating our site.

- We will also attempt to contact other similar sites to learn from the work they've already completed which is similar to what we are trying to do. This will allow us to avoid simple mistakes and improve upon the sites that already exist.



Target Audience:

People of age 16 - 35'ish. The Ohio State campus community and other university students in Columbus will also represent a high level of the users because many of them are moving to the city for the first time and are curious about what is around for them to do. Especially those who are under 21 - they are going to be wondering what bars/restaurants are fun that they are actually able to get in to.



Preliminary Outline of Business Problem:

We are addressing the need of a person who wants to quickly and easily find a restaurant or bar that meets his/her desires. This website will provide an easy way to sort through the large amount of information that is important when making such a decision and will allow the user to filter through the many options that exist.

What Our Site Will Do:


Our site will feature profiles for each of the bars/restaurants in the Columbus area. Each profile will be associated with searchable key words (such as "outdoor seating", "live music", "Monday drink specials"), which will allow users to quickly find places that meet their needs based on these pre-defined search terms. For example, a user who wants to find a restaurant in the downtown area with outdoor seating, live music and drink specials on a Thursday night, can select the key terms downtown, outdoor seating, live music, drink specials, and Thursday - and the site will return a list of all the bars/restaurants that match those key terms.


Each establishment's profile will also contain important information such as the business' hours, cover charges, 18+ or 21+ rules, weekly specials, a link to their website, an overall rating and any reviews they've received from the site.



On the website's homepage there will be a scrolling set of "slides" that advertises one time specials, events, newly opened places, etc. We may also include a section where users can see which restaurants are currently trending.



How We Arrived at This Idea:

We each shared the individual ideas that we came up with and then brainstormed these ideas as a group to get an idea of where each could lead. From there, we narrowed it down and ultimately selected the one that sounded the most fun, interesting, and plausible. We thought this idea would be really useful for our target demographic and we thought we could have fun pursuing the idea.



Potential Competitors:

There are quite a few sites that do something similar, but none of the sites we've found are all-inclusive like ours will be. We hope to build off of these sites, providing one site which can wrap up just about everything these sites do combined.

Some competitors include:

- Yelp

- Experience Columbus

- Trip Advisor

- Eat Street

- Open Table

- Columbus Crave

- Drink Up Columbus
- UrbanSpoon