alvarez dixon

Assignment 3b: Usability Study of Gophermafia.com

Gopher Mafia Games is a brick and mortar retail store that also provides space for its patrons to meetup and play their favorite versions of the games this store sells.

They specialize in trading card games such as Magic the Gathering, Role Playing Games (RPGs) such as Dungeons & Dragons, and tabletop wargames played using collectable and customizable miniature figurines such as Warhammer.

We conducted a usability study of Gophermafia.com which consisted of:

Professional assessment using tools to test for usability by functionally diverse individuals
live usability testing with real users
Comparative analysis and recommendations

usability study

Professional Assessment

USER SCENARIO

We believed it to be useful to describe a scenario in which the user could approach the tasks and used the following narrative to build context:

You are a mentor to a preteen who owns a few cards from a popular trading card game and is interested in building their collection, exploring more games, and finding others to play with.

USER BACKGROUND

We conducted the site evaluation in a cafe with a user who had no prior experience with the Gopher Mafia organization or website but represents a user with the likelihood of having an interest in the goods and services offered by the company. When asked the user reported playing tabletop or board games with others in a location outside of the home within the last two weeks. Expressed potential to be interested in learning more about Role playing games and that price and familiarity with the game would be the primary considerations for making a purchase.[1][2]

USER TASKS

Task 1: When will there be an upcoming singles tournament?(completed on Mobile device)
Task 2: Find the return policy for Gopher Mafia Games.
Task 3: Find out how a personal event is scheduled.
Task 4: What is the address of Gopher Mafia Store.
Task 5: You are a new Magic the Gathering card collector and player, find out whether you can buy and sell cards for your collection at this store.
Task 6: Find out how many different Role Playing Games are available to play at this location

[3]

Task 1: When will there be an upcoming singles tournament?(completed on Mobile device)

The user considered a tournament to be a special event and quickly clicked the appropriate link. The user did not express concern about the location of the controls to advance to the next month as we thought they would.

Task 2: Find the return policy for Gopher Mafia Games.

The user considered again rather quickly that the answer may be found in the FAQ section and clicked the corresponding link. At this point it seemed clear that the absence of an underline for the menu text as an affordance that they were in fact clickable was not a problem for the user.

Once on the FAQ page the user expressed surprise to find what appeared to be topic categories.

"I wish they would just list all the topics so I can scroll through them all at once."

The user clicked the [+], a clear indication that the topic being targeted was expandable. The topic did expand as expected, however the information could not be read in full in that moment as the user found both the mouse and arrow keys were no longer able to scroll the page. The user banged the keys several times and hoovered the mouse up and down the right edge of the screen in search of a scroll bar.

"Now this is really frustrating. I'm I doing something wrong?"

I responded with a reminder that we are testing the site and not the user. The use exited the full screen view of the website and expressed joy when a scrollbar became visible on the right edge of the browser window.

"That was irritating."

This issue occurred again during the attempt to complete tasks #3, #5, and #6.

It was interesting to see how the inability to scroll became a major issue for the user.[5] It was an example of how issues that stop users from doing what they want and relate to function of the site rise in priority above those that involve merely the presentation of information. [9]

Task 3: Find out how a personal event is scheduled.

Before leaving the previous page the user moved the pointer toward the "Events" category heading in the FAQ and expressed for the first time confusion about why the heading "disappears whenever I go to click it". The user hoovered over the area, moved the pointer away and seeing that it was still there preceded to click the link which led to the topic that allowed completion of the task.

Task 4: What is the address of Gopher Mafia Store.

The user's first attempt was to click the "Contact us" link in the menu bar. After finding first the form requesting user information navigated back to the "Home" screen and scrolled to the bottom of the page to find the address.

Task 5: You are a new Magic the Gathering card collector and player, find out whether you can buy and sell cards for your collection at this store.

The user had no trouble navigating to a partial answer to the question this task posed. The user expressed continued irritation about the vanishing links and scrollbar. The user did not find a an answer under this topic that told whether they could actually buy cards at the site. The user seemed not to notice that there was a search button on the page represented by a simple icon of a magnifying glass[6]. At this point the user was instructed to pull up the site on their mobile device to finish the remainder of the test.[11]

Task 6: Find out how many different Role Playing Games are available to play at this location.

This tasked proved to be the most difficult to achieve and the point at which the user noticed that on the mobile device view of the site there was no search function to be found.

REDESIGN "tweak" SPECULATIONS [10]

Highest priority would be to fix the scrolling issue on the FAQ page as it prevents users from moving forward in pursuit of information and is a functionality issue.
Add highlights on hover and underline link text to offer two affordances to support navigation
Increase the prominence of the search button
Remove topic filters on the FAQ as well as remove expanding of topics to allow all information to be visible by scrolling. This will improve accessibility and afford ease of scrolling using mobile devices.
Improve color contrast sitewide
Modify the organization of the "Archive" page to include dates of each post
relocate calendar controls from the bottom to the top of the calendar

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