TY - RPRT
T1 - Usability Evaluation of www.budget.com
T2 - Performed for the CUE-8 workshop
AU - Bruun, Anders
AU - Jensen, Janne Jul
AU - Skov, Mikael B.
AU - Stage, Jan
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - This report presents the results of a usability evaluation of the budget.com website. The evaluation was carried out by a team of 4 HCI experts, and it involved 10 potential users. The evaluation is based on measurement of (1) task completion time, (2) task completion, (3) user satisfaction and (4) perceived workload. We have also analyzed the user interaction with the website for (5) usability problems. Through the evaluation, we have found the following weaknesses of the website: Reservation takes considerably more time than promised. The website indicates that a reservation can be made in 60 seconds. No user was able to do that; the shortest time spent was just over 4 minutes, the average was about 7.5 minutes and the longest time was just under 17 minutes.The menu bar on the home page is not useful. Several users know what they want to do, but they cannot get there from the home page. Many browse around in the menu and try other measures.The information on the website is difficult to access and use. There is a large amount of information with very little structure on it; it is accessed through a long list of links. The structure is not supporting the user, and the information is not useful for specific purposes.The user satisfaction is generally low. Except one high and two low scores, the user satisfaction was in the middle range.There are too many severe usability problems. The evaluation identified a considerable number of usability problems. 5 of them were critical which means that the user did not complete the task. 36 were serious which means that the user wasted extensive time and effort before completing the tasks. This is generally not a satisfactory number.The task load on the user is quite high. About half of the users had a perceived task load less than 50, but the other 5 had higher numbers, which should be avoided. Overall, there were a high number of usability problems, and the users were not supported in carrying out their tasks. We recommend that the website is revised. The home page needs improvement, in particular to the 60 seconds box for making reservations and to the menu bar that should be supporting typical user tasks. The reservation process should be better illustrated. Improvements in these areas have the potential to remove a considerable part of the usability problems.
AB - This report presents the results of a usability evaluation of the budget.com website. The evaluation was carried out by a team of 4 HCI experts, and it involved 10 potential users. The evaluation is based on measurement of (1) task completion time, (2) task completion, (3) user satisfaction and (4) perceived workload. We have also analyzed the user interaction with the website for (5) usability problems. Through the evaluation, we have found the following weaknesses of the website: Reservation takes considerably more time than promised. The website indicates that a reservation can be made in 60 seconds. No user was able to do that; the shortest time spent was just over 4 minutes, the average was about 7.5 minutes and the longest time was just under 17 minutes.The menu bar on the home page is not useful. Several users know what they want to do, but they cannot get there from the home page. Many browse around in the menu and try other measures.The information on the website is difficult to access and use. There is a large amount of information with very little structure on it; it is accessed through a long list of links. The structure is not supporting the user, and the information is not useful for specific purposes.The user satisfaction is generally low. Except one high and two low scores, the user satisfaction was in the middle range.There are too many severe usability problems. The evaluation identified a considerable number of usability problems. 5 of them were critical which means that the user did not complete the task. 36 were serious which means that the user wasted extensive time and effort before completing the tasks. This is generally not a satisfactory number.The task load on the user is quite high. About half of the users had a perceived task load less than 50, but the other 5 had higher numbers, which should be avoided. Overall, there were a high number of usability problems, and the users were not supported in carrying out their tasks. We recommend that the website is revised. The home page needs improvement, in particular to the 60 seconds box for making reservations and to the menu bar that should be supporting typical user tasks. The reservation process should be better illustrated. Improvements in these areas have the potential to remove a considerable part of the usability problems.
KW - Usability evaluering
KW - Usabilityproblemer
KW - Task completion
KW - Task completion time
KW - TLX test
KW - Usability Evaluation
KW - Usability Problem
KW - Task Completion
KW - Task Completion Time
KW - TLX test
M3 - Report
BT - Usability Evaluation of www.budget.com
PB - Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University
ER -