World Usability Day | A Year in the Life

— Published November 11th, 2009  |  by Randall Snare and Elizabeth McGuane

So what did the Great IQ User Test look at?

To promote the 2008 theme of transportation, we spot-checked some Irish transport websites in an all-day user test with over 80 participants, lured off the street on a rainy day in Dublin. Then we analysed the results of tests on four websites:

• Ryanair.com
• Aerlingus.com
• Luas.ie
• Buseireann.ie

Let's take a look at some highlights of what we've found from three of them and if they've improved in those areas.

Ryanair

We only tested the usability of their website - the booking part of the trip. We didn't test the usability of the whole Ryanair experience, which has become a bit infamous (coin operated toilet anyone?).

One of the things we found out:

Ryanair failed users who tried to book flights on a new route (they did fine when they looked for tickets on existing routes). Why?

• Inadequate feedback about search results
• Ineffective navigation because of a cluttered homepage

Let's see it in action:

We asked the users the following question:

"You know Ryanair is cheap - and you fancy a holiday, but aren't sure where to go. Using the website, try to find out all the destinations that Ryanair fly to."

Most people found it very hard to do that because they couldn't find the destination map.

Users described it as "well hidden," thought it was part of the browser menu, and most resorted to looking at the destinations in the search drop down menu.

What we suggested:

We made a quick wireframe of a simplified homepage, where we:

• Simplified the primary and secondary navigation
• Increased the white space to improve readability, while maintaining the brand
• Reduced the number of competing elements on the page

So, has Ryanair improved?

This is their homepage now:

The 'Destinations' tab is a bit lower than last year, and a bit more visible. Still cluttered as ever, still too much navigation, but we see a small improvement.

Aer Lingus

One of the things we found out:

One problem stood out with Aer Lingus's site: not one user could book a multi-city trip.

Let's see it in action:

Here's one of the tasks we gave our test users –

"You have just won the lotto. You would like to book a trip in January to visit your friends in Boston. After a week in Boston, you would then like to fly to Barcelona for a few days and then return home. Please try to complete this task using Aerlingus.com"

You can't book a multicity journey from the homepage, but there is a link to it there. But this link, called 'multicity,' is practically invisible. Not one user saw it, or knew what it was. Many users were looking for an option that read "Multitrip" or "Multiple Journeys."

What we suggested:

Simple – move the multicity booking option to the homepage and make it obvious.

Suggestion 1: The types of journeys are tabbed: the options are large and therefore more obvious.

Suggestion 2: Change the link to mimic the 'return' and 'one-way' buttons.

So, has Aer Lingus improved?

This is their homepage now:

They haven't taken our suggestion, but they have moved the multicity link. The link is farther away from the other two options: differentiating it more, which is counter to our suggestion of making each option more similar. But testing is the only way to find out which one works better.

Bus Eireann

We've written about bus sites before - it seems like it's difficult to get them right. But we've found that it doesn't have to be.

One of the things we found out

Bus Eireann's main problem was confusion: most users became lost when they tried to do any task: like look for bus routes and timetables, book tickets, or use a route planner.

Let's see it in action:

We asked,

"You are planning a holiday to Dingle for the days between Christmas and New Year's Eve. Using the site, please try to find out bus times for these days, leaving from Dublin."

The route planner form left all users confused and frustrated.

Why?

• The error messages were worded poorly
• The departure date defaulted to blank. Users had to re-enter it, even though it wasn't necessary. This wasted their time and frustrated them.
• The calls to action were mixed up: 'search connection and 'new request' made all users uncertain.

What we suggested:

Improve the form. We redesigned it to show how:

We revised it so that only the necessary information was included, the labelling is clear and the error messages make sense.

So, has Bus Eireann improved?

A tiny bit. Their route planner is as bad as ever, but with one small improvement. You don't need to re-type your journey date on the connections query page.

However, the moment a user clicks 'Go', it reverts back to the old route planner, with all the same problems from before.

So, how usable was 2008? For Irish transport anyway?

Most of these sites haven't changed much, although the changes they have made seem to reflect the core user problems. And baby steps are better than no steps at all. Hopefully this year's World Usability Day, whose theme is sustainability, will get more of a push in Ireland. We'll do our part.

And remember to join us for our iQ Studio Launch party on World Usabilty Day, here in our Clarendon street offices, November 12th, 6 pm.

Download the report

To see all the sites we reviewed and our design recommendations in detail, download the full 110-page report (PDF, 6.5 MB). It's free!