Kasey Alpert

Into to Web Publishing

Jacquie Lamer
Usability Test Assignment
3/10/2015

Usability Test for KansasCity.com

Test Preparation
I prepared for the test by first going through each of the tasks that the
participants would be asked and complete them as if I was testing myself.
The first task was to find what films were nominated for best picture for the
Academy Awards. I typed best picture academy awards into the search tool
that is in the header on KansasCity.com. The first article that showed up was
a photo gallery for the Oscars. I had to scroll through 6 pages on the photo
slideshow to find the names of the films that were nominated for best
picture. The next assigned task was to find out when the Oscars air on TV.
Before I went to go search for the information, I noticed that what I was
looking for was in the caption of the photo that was still up from the last task.
The assignment for task 3 was very easy, in my opinion. The task was to find
the section of the site titled 816, click on an article and go through the
process of ordering reprints of it. I first hovered over the Living tab, and
then when I didnt find what I was looking for I went over to the News tab
and found the 816 section. There is a circular button with an arrow

encased in it at the top of the article, and I hovered over it. I was right in
guessing that this button would display a link to order reprints. Once the link
had been clicked, it takes you to a different website where reprints can be
ordered. I thought finding the reprint link was straightforward and simple.
However, task 4 proved to be more difficult. The task was to determine the
events that will take place over the following week in Jackson and Cass
counties. I went through a couple different searches, typing upcoming
events in Jackson county and events calendar through the search tool, but
they werent helpful. I went to the News tab and then clicked on 816, and
I found an article that had some recent events that happened in Jackson and
Cass County, but the article didnt mention future events. In the end, I
couldnt find exactly what the task was asking for. The next task was to
search for a job in a specific city using a keyword. There is a Classified tab
that I went to that places a search for a job using a keyword, and the city and
state can also be specified. When I clicked search, the jobs page didnt show
up. Instead KansasCity.com reloaded back to the home page. So instead of
searching the jobs through the Kansas City Stars website, I clicked a link
titled View All Top Jobs, which is located right under the job search under
the Classified tab. This took me to careerbuilder.com where I could then
search for a job in Kansas City. The last task was to share a job listing on
social media. Completing this task proved to be difficult. I could not locate a
link to share a listing on any social media site. Some job listings had the

company Facebook or Twitter feed on the side, but the only way I could find
to share a job listing was to email it.

Choosing Participants
Tester 1: Karla Everman
Karla Everman is 19 years old, and is from the Kansas City area
and a fulltime student and part time tutor at Northwest Missouri State
University. I chose her as a tester because I knew that she would have
an interest in participating. She spends approximate 8 hours a day on
the internet with 10% of her time spent browsing and 90% on social
media. Karla is a high experience tester.

Environment for Tester 1

Location of test: The location of the test was in Karlas room at

her desk. Her room was chosen because this is where she does
most of her internet browsing.

Physical environment: There was an overhead light that was

on, as well a another overhead light in the background and a
lamp nearby. Karla had her phone on vibrate and was placed on
the desk, to the left of her computer. The room was silent; there
were no other people in the room and the air conditioning was
off.

Technical environment: The computer used was a HP

EliteBook laptop with a screen resolution of 1366x768. Karla
used Google Chrome for the test and did not have any add ons
installed. The internet connection speed was approximately
5Mb/s.

Tester 2: Brenna McLeod

Brenna is a 21 year old from the Kansas City area and is a full
time student at Northwest Missouri State University. She spends about
40 hours a week on the internet, and only 20% of that time is on social
media. I chose her as a tester because I thought she would be a good
high experience user because she works part time with her job that is
back home, and all of her projects are on the computer.
Environment for Tester 2

Location of test: The location of the test was in Brennas room

at her desk. Her room was picked because that is where most of
her internet browsing is done.

Physical environment: There was an overhead light on, a

lamp, another overhead light on, and Christmas lights were on.
There was a window open, and some slight noise could be heard
from the people outside.

Technical environment: The computer used is a HP EliteBook

laptop. The screen resolution is 1366x768 and the internet

connection was about 5Mb/s. For the majority of the test Chrome
was the browser that was used, and an adblock ad-on was inuse. Internet Explorer was used for the last half of the assigned
tasks.

Test Results
Initial Site Thoughts:

Tester 1 Report: Karla got to the site by typing the url into a
google search. Once she got to the site, she read through all of
the articles that were displayed on the home page. She scrolled
by using the mousepad. When Karla got to the bottom of the
page, she noticed the bottom navigation and thought that it was
a good thing for the site to have.

Tester 2 Report: Brenna first noticed the temperature display

when she reached Kansascity.com. She said that, there are lots
of big things, and a lot going on but it doesnt seem too
crowded. She also used the mousepad to scroll and she said
that it seemed like she was scrolling forever. Once Brenna
reached the bottom of the page she remarked that, it doesnt
seem too hard to find things specific, but it could be crazy if
youre just browsing.

Task 1: Determine the following information about the 87th

Annual Academy Awards.

Tester 1

What films are nominated for best picture?: Karla first went
over the Entertainment tab and read through all of the topics
before clicking on Movies. She scrolled using the mousepad,
and went through the entire page until she got to the bottom.
When she didnt find what she was looking for she went back to
the top of the page and hovered over the News tab, then the
Home tab, reading through each of the topics under the tabs.
She then went back over to the Entertainment tab and clicked
on TV. Karla started reading through each of the titles of the
articles and got distracted by the titles that were displayed on
the right side of the page as she scrolled through the whole
page. Her phone vibrated at this point, and she seemed to give
up on the task after she checked her phone. We moved on to the
next task.
- Answer: Didnt finish task.
- Completed: No.

When will the Oscars air on Television?: She first went to the
Entertainment tab and after reading through the topics, and
then clicked on Star TV Listings. She scrolled using her
mouspad, and read through the tv listings. Karla took time
looking through the listings, searching for when the Oscars would

be airing. She went through many pages of the tv listings before

saying there should be an easier way of doing this. She
thought maybe she had passed the listing for the Oscars so she
went back up to the top of the page and started going through
the listings again. At this point I knew that the task was not going
to be completed so I advised that we move on.
- Answer: Did not find the answer.
- Completed: No.

Tester 2

What films are nominated for best picture?: Brenna first

went to the Entertainment tab and clicked on the section
Movies. She started scrolling using the mousepad and was
looking at the headlines first. She asked: can I use the search
bar in the site? I told her that that was acceptable and she
typed in academy awards and movies into the search tool. She
said that it would be helpful to filter out the results. Brenna then
searched academy awards, and when she didnt find what she
wanted she searched Oscars. She then spent some time
reading through all of the headlines to see if an article contained
the information that she needed. Brenna then did a couple more
searches, typing 87th Oscars then trying best picture. The top
link that came up when she searched for the best picture was a
photo gallery that had Oscar information. She said, I dont think
this is right. She did another search for Oscars best picture

and scrolled through the results. She was starting to get

frustrated and said its really buried; not the first thing that
comes up. At this point my phone vibrated, and I hoped that it
hadnt distracted her. She was still looking through articles and
eventually found the answer.
- Answer: American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand
Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of
Everything, and Whiplash.
- Completed: Yes.

When will the Oscars air on Television?: She searched

Oscars air time in the search tool. She mentioned the photo
gallery that she had seen during her search in the previous task,
and said that it probably contained the information she was
looking for. She clicked on a different photo gallery that
contained pictures of celebrities from the red carpet event of the
Academy Awards. Brenna clicked through a couple of images
until one of them said the date that they were taken.
- Answer: February 22
- Completed: Yes.

Recommendations to improve UX for this task, linked to

Jakon Nielsens 10 Usability Heuristics: Both testers thought
that the site was busy, and caused some distractions. I would
suggest cleaning up the design of the placement of the articles.
The heuristic that most aligns with this idea is aesthetic and
minimalist design. When searching through a topic, such as

816, there are multiple places where articles are displayed.

The featured articles should be off to the side more and not
displayed throughout the page. It becomes distracting and
overwhelming when browsing.

[see next page for screenshot example]

Original

Propose
d

Proposed

Task 2: Find the section of the site titled 816 which covers
community news
Tester 1
In this section, find a story of interest and go through the
steps to order reprints of the article. Go as far as possible
without actually ordering: Karla hovered over the Living tab
and read through the available topics, then she went over to the
Entertainment tab and did the same thing. Then she found that
the 816 topic is located under the News section. Once she
got into the 816 topic she quickly found an article of interest.
After she found the article, her phone went off and she quickly
checked it before returning to her task. She immediately hovered
over the arrow button and clicked on the order reprints link. Then
Karla clicked on the Request reprint link on the external page
and quickly found the form to fill out.
- Completed up to ordering: Yes.
Tester 2
In this section, find a story of interest and go through the
steps to order reprints of the article. Go as far as possible
without actually ordering: Brenna started by looking in the
Home tab before finding the section in the News tab. Once
she clicked on 816 she scrolled down to the bottom of the page
and noticed the link that read Print in the bottom navigation.
She said thats probably to order the paper, so she went and

clicked on an article. There was a pop-up that said she must sign
in as a member to get unlimited access. When she exited the
pop-up the site just reload back to the home page. So, she closed
down Chrome and opened up Internet Explorer. The first thing
she said when she got to Kansascity.com was that the website
looks obnoxious with the ads. When she used chrome, she had
an adblock on. She then got back to the same exact article by
doing all the steps already stated above. Once Brenna got to the
article, she scrolled down to the bottom of the page while saying
that she was looking for text that says reprint. Then, she
scrolled back to the top and found the icon with the arrow on it
and clicked the link to order reprints. She followed the link all the
way until the form was on the screen. After, Brenna mentioned
that she thought that task would be simple, but it turned out not
to be.
- Completed up to ordering: Yes.

Recommendations to improve UX for this task, linked to

Jakob Nielsens 10 Usability Heuristics: Hiding the reprint
link in a button makes it difficult for some users to find. I would
suggest placing the link directly on the article page, so that once
a visitor reads the article, and reaches the bottom of it, they can
clearly see the text to order a reprint. A link to print the article
should also be added to stay consistent with expectation. This

would be an example of the Recognition rather than recall

heuristic.
[see next page for screenshot example]
The icons that are at the end of an article

Origin
al

Propose
d

Task 3: Determine what events will take place in the following

week in Jackson and Cass counties.
Tester 1
Determine what events will take place in the following
week in Jackson and Cass counties: Karla went over to the
News tab and clicked on the Local News section. Then it
occurred to her that she could have used the search tool within
the website to help guide her search. She typed Jackson
County into the search tool and then scrolled through the
results. When she didnt find what she wanted she typed

upcoming events in Jackson co. This search provided Karla with

events in Jackson Co., but they were not upcoming ones. She
kept scrolling through the search results and went on to page 2.
There on page 2 she found a calendar of events for Jackson and
Cass Co. She read through it and got distracted by the titles of
the events.
- Answer: Read off each of the titles until I told her to stop.
- Completed: Yes.

Tester 2
Determine what events will take place in the following
week in Jackson and Cass counties: Brenna first looked under
the News tab and got distracted by the different topics. She
said she was looking through all of the tabs for a calendar, and
as she was looking, ads were popping up which were distracting.
She ended up clicking the local news section under the News
tab. Brenna said that she couldnt find a calendar anywhere. So,
she typed calendar into the search tool and then clicked on an
article that was on how to submit a calendar, which wasnt
helpful. Then she did a few searches, typing neighborhood
news, then upcoming events. Brenna then filtered the results
by latest date posted. With this still not delivering the results she
wanted, she became frustrated and annoyed. Brenna said that, I
just want there to be a calendar. Then she wanted to move on

to the next task and didnt want to try to figure this one out
anymore. So, she gave up.
- Answer: None, gave up.
- Completed: No.

Recommendations to improve UX for this task, linked to

Jakob Nielsens 10 Usability Heuristics: There is no calendar
for visitors to look at. Both of my testers would have benefited
from being able to visit a calendar that listed all of the upcoming
events. The upcoming events page is buried deep within the site,
and I am sure that many visitors have never been able to find it,
or find it only after looking for a long time. I would suggest that
the site follows the heuristic Match between system and the real
world, and add a calendar that can be visible to visitors.
[see next page for screenshot example]

Add a link that when clicked, will take the visitor to a calendar of
events.
Origin
al

Propose
d

Task 4: Determine the following information related to finding

a job.
Tester 1
Search for a job in any specific city using any keyword:
First Karla went to the Classifieds tab and then went over all of
the other tabs before beginning to type into the search bar. She
didnt finish typing because the titles of the articles distracted
her. She started scrolling down the page and then read through
the bottom navigation links when she got there. Then she went
back over all of the tabs again before clicking the jobs link at
the top right of the page. At this point it took her to an external
page hosted by careerbuilder.com. Karla typed in her keyword
Accountant and also typed in a city and selected a category as
well. Then she scrolled through most of the job listings before
clicking on one.
- Answer: Was able to find a job by typing in a keyword.
- Completed: Yes.
Find a job listing and share it using social media: With the
search results still up, Karla clicked on one. She clicked on the
company Facebook icon which took Karla to the company
Facebook page. She looked around and then hit the back button

to go back to her search results. She then scrolled through the

twitter feed that is directly on the Kansas City site. Karla then
clicked the link to view all jobs and then hit the back button. Her
phone vibrated and she picked it up, hit a button to silence it,
and took if off the desk. Then she clicked on a different job link
than the one before, but she was having trouble finding how to
share the listing. She decided that she would try to email it
instead, and then she gave up on searching anymore.
- Answer: Couldnt find out how to share a job listing.
- Completed: No.

Tester 2
Search for a job in any specific city using any keyword:
Brenna hovered over the Business tab before clicking on the
Jobs link at the top right of the page. It then took her to the
page where she could search for jobs. She typed in Psychology
jobs and put Sarasota, FL for the location and was able to find
many job listings.
- Answer: Was able to find a job using a keyword.
- Completed: Yes.
Find a job listing and share it using social media: With all
of the listings from the previous task still up on the screen,
Brenna clicked on a listing. She noted that there are ads
everywhere on the screen. She noticed that the listing could be
emailed. She clicked the company Facebook link and then went

back to the job listing she had clicked. Brenna said that she
expected it to be next to the email, for continuity. When she
scrolled through the listing she noticed how all of the text was on
the left side of the page, and thought that the text should really
be covering more of the site. When she couldnt figure out how
to share the listing she said that this looks like a terrible site.
This site is, however, not directly on Kansascity.com. It is on
careerbuilder.com but there is a header that links back to
Kansascity.com.
- Answer: Was not able to share a listing on social media.
- Completed: No.

Recommendations to improve UX for this task, linked to

Jakob Nielsens 10 Usability Heuristics: When viewing any
article on KansasCity.com, there were buttons before the article
started that were for sharing to social media sites. To stay
consistent, the jobs site needs to have the same kind of buttons,
even if this is on careerbuilder.com and not kansascity.com. This
aligns with the Consistency and Standards heuristic.
These are the icons on the job listings. There is nothing
to indicate a share button for social media.

These are the buttons on kansascity.com. There are clear

buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

This is what I would suggest gets done to the buttons. A

share button should be added, so that visitors who want
to share a job link on a social media page they can.

Conclusions

Completion rate: Karla Everman had a completion rate of 50%.

She completed 3 out of the 6 assignment tasks. Brenna McLeod
had a 67% completion rate. She completed 4 out of the 6 tasks.

Similarities and differences: Both of my testers completed

the tasks in many similar ways. They both used the search tool
to help them find information on the site. They both also took the
time to scroll through the pages while trying to find the right
article or information. Both Karla and Brenna used the jobs link at
the top right corner of the site instead of going under the
Classifieds tab. My testers also went about completing the
tasks in different ways. Brenna right off the bat used the search
tool, while Karla didnt use it until after completing 3 tasks. Karla
also spent more time reading through the articles and the other
content on the site than Brenna did. Brenna didnt let the
frustration of the tasks get to her as much as Karla did. Once
Karla got frustrated, she was ready to be done, while Brenna

tried harder to finish the task. Karla tended to get more

distracted with the site than Brenna did. One of the obvious
reasons why they went about completing the tasks differently is
because they are different people. Different people search the
internet different ways. I also think that the amount of
distractions a person can take affects their ability to focus. Some
people are able to have focus when there are elements that
could pose as a distraction. This was clear with my testers. Karla
was easily distracted with all of the articles and content on the
site, while Brenna has a little more focus. The threshold for
focusing on the task at hand and not getting distracted made
itself known during this test. It is important to remember that
different people get distracted by different things. So, making
sure that a site doesnt have a lot going on and has a minimalist
design (following the aesthetic and minimalist design heuristic) is
a good way to ensure that the website has good user experience.