User Test 1 Alpha

Final Project Website: User Test 1 (Alpha)

Working Title: Geocaching with Kids in the Bay Area

Report Author: Diane E. Main
Date: November 18, 2008

Brief Profile of Users/Subjects
Five people tested the site:
•   middle school teacher, experienced geocacher, youth leader
•   elementary teacher, parent, novice geocacher
•   middle school principal, experienced geocacher, youth leader
•   elementary principal, novice geocacher, parent of adult children
•   school technical director with military experience and training, non-geocacher

Think Aloud Task
Find out what geocaching is. Then, decide on what would be the next thing to find out and try to find out more about it on the website.

Summary of Think Aloud
•   All users found the definition of geocaching immediately, but some felt it was too much to read. One recommended breaking it down into bullet points. Several found the “silly” video distracting.
•   Two users wanted a clearer understanding of how the geocaching.com website is used when getting started.
•   One user, who knew what geocaching was already, wanted more information about coordinates and how those get into a GPS receiver.
•   All subjects made use of the navigation bar and commented on its ease of use, though some found the colors for new versus visited links to be counter-intuitive.
•   One user commented that links within the page frequently took him to pages outside without opening a new tab or window. He thought users might struggle to get back to the site on their own.

Summary of Post-test
•   One user recommended I use headings in every case where the site has paragraphs of text. She recommended bullet points that users could skim.   She liked the headings I had used in some sections.
•   Two users found a typo (“receivers” instead of “receiver”), and one noted that a page refers to navigation on the left when it is on the right.
•   A user who wanted to find specific places to take kids geocaching found the GBA site unhelpful and thought my site could do a more effective job presenting links to specific parks organizations’ web sites.
•   All users liked the general layout and color scheme.
•   Users had varied reactions to the videos included, but all said it was easier to watch a video than to read text.

Findings To Be Implemented
•   Fix the typo and the reference to navigation on left.
•   Change large blocks of text to have bulleted lists and/or headings that make skimming easier.
•   Add information to “what is” section to explain use of geocaching.com site.
•   Move “silly” video from “what is” page to a different page or remove it from site.

Findings That Will Not Be Implemented
•   I will not change the navigation bar colors because the templates in Google Page Creator do not allow users to do this.
•   I will not create my own list of parks at this time because I do not have the time to devote. I may change this in the future, however.

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