Ironhack’s Prework: Challenge 3

We are performing a usability evaluation over a website, and redesigning the elements that we feel may be problematic for the users. The challenge asks for us to establish certain personas, then perform usability tests to identify pain points and redesign from there.

Creating personas

Our user type is a couple around 60–65 years old. We will not specify their details nor create a complete profile of their personas in order to stay focused on the main exercise the challenge proposes.

Our user is accessing the analyzed website due to them planning a trip to one of the “seven wonders for the new millenia”, a list composed by remarkable monuments around the world which were elected in 2007. The destination they have chosen is Petra (Jordania). Our user is aware of the following data:

• The nearest airport is King Hussein (AQJ), in Aqaba. They may decide to visit other destinations within the country, in which case the main airport to take into account would be Queen Alia (QAIA) in Amman.
• Jordanian currency is the dinar (JOD, د.أ). It is pegged to the American dollar (USD, $) and its exchange rate with our users currency (euro, EUR, €) is around 1.2 euros for a dinar. Cash will be needed, as many small establishments may not accept credit cards.
• They need to have their regular vaccines in order, and they should receive vaccination for hepatitis A and B and typhoid.
• Travelling in spring 2021, they will need warm clothes. As temperatures may vary during the day, several layers are recommended. Women may want to cover their hair, so scarves are usually regarded as being quite useful when travelling to Jordania.
• Petra can be visited in one day, but they will probably search for other popular destinations within the country and plan for 5–7 days in it.

Selecting and testing the website

Our users would not use a smartphone to search for their flights and accommodation, feeling safer in front of a computer. Therefore, we are going to analyze websites and not the apps these companies have available.

In order to select the most suitable option for our users, we run a Usability Heuristics evaluation over the websites. Using Jakob Nielsen’s principles, ten aspects are researched and compared in the following graphic:

Based on the results, Kayak seems to be the best option for our users. Their competitors failing in providing a consistent experience may be the most important point when going for Kayak. They also allow their users to directly search for a package (flight + accommodation), which fits our personas who are looking for a comfortable way to get their trip settled.

Testing Kayak’s usability

Four tests are performed to identify the problems Kayak may present for our users. Every tester fits into our profile and could search for this out of their own interest. The testers are confronted with the website and given a task: arrange your flight, accommodation and transport during a trip to Jordania which must include visiting Petra and takes place during spring 2021.

Several pain points are detected during the tests. None of them makes it impossible for the testers to complete the task, but some of them create relevant problems in their experience.

• Non-working buttons: the most frustrating experience was getting to a button that did not seem to be clickable. This button was a core part of the experience for our testers.
• Lack of indicators: two testers searched for dates in 2020. The package finder gives no results, but it does not specify it is due to the dates introduced. The testers assumed it was not working correctly and started searching for their flight and accommodation separately.
• Incomplete information: when searching for the flight + accommodation package, only the information for the hotel is clearly provided. Flight information is only displayed on a popup
• Non-clear templating: three out of four testers spent much more time than needed because of some options and links being difficult to find. The searching for a complete package icon does not represent this concept. Also, the website numerically ranks its options but does not seem to let their users order the options by their ranking.
• Confusing clicks: some non-clickable areas look as buttons, while some links are small and do not immediately attract its user’s attention. While in the maps, some dots make it impossible to click on nearby others. These were repeteadly problematic for the testers.
• Bad styling: a couple text fields are not correctly styled, with the texts overflowing and therefore being illegible.

Redesigning

We found the website to not need a complete redesign, but some specific aspects corrected to improve its user experience. This has to do with the flaws detected during the heuristics evaluation, mostly in the aspect of error prevention and recovering from the mistakes.

The most relevant change would address the incomplete information issue that the testers experimented and reported. Instead of only portraying half of the information our user was looking for, we propose a new interface combining both details from the accommodation and the flight included in the offer. This would mean a major improvement for the user profile we studied.

Other redesigned aspects would include:

• Repairing broken links, so every button works as intended. Also trying to keep the button aesthetic consistent, avoiding the same graphic treatment in any non-clickable area.
• Correcting the styling mistakes, so the texts do not appear cropped due to overflowing their containers.
• Adding textual indicators and improving the accuracy of icons, so every action available and/or done by the users is clearly explained to them.
• Using the ranking on the flights as a sorting option.

Some of these changes were difficult to include in a simple prototype, as they have to be applied in a case-by-case basis and in many screen through the task flow we performed. We have worked upon the actual website look, instead of creating a mid-fi prototype, in order to showcase different points in a clearer way. These can be found here.