Julaiti rubingna

Overview

Summary: The purpose of this user study is to test the usability of Gopher Mafia Games website by finishing several tasks and use the result to redesign the website. During the study, the user M was given five tasks including one mobile task to finish on the Gopher Mafia Games website. There was also an observer(me) sitting next to her and taking down notes.

Background of Website: The Gopher Mafia Games website is designed to provide information and post news about an actual board game store located in Champaign, Illinois.

Background of User: User M is a first-year graduate student majoring in Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is new to Champaign and she does not have experience in board games.

Report

Task 1: When will there be an upcoming singles tournament?

First Try: M first asked me what singles tournament is and after she got the answer, she read through the homepage but found nothing relatable, then she typed “singles tournament” in the search box. After she was directed to the results page, she ignored the results and clicked on “Archive” tab on the navigation bar but found nothing related to singles tournament. Then, she asked me if she could finish this task later and I approved.

Second Try (on mobile): After M finished the fifth task, I suggested her to finish this task on her phone. She first clicked on the "hamburger" icon on the homepage and then clicked on “special events”. After the calendar was loaded, she clicked on the date October 12 and found the information about upcoming singles tournament.

Observer Note: Since this is the first task, things did not work very well and several problems were detected. After M opened the website, she said the theme made her feel uncomfortable and it looked like some "dark web". When she was directed to the results page after searching, she ignored the results and tried to find the answer somewhere else. This actually surprised me because I saw the correct results listing below. However, I think this is also understandable, because the first two lines of text on the page are "Need a new search?" and "If you don't find what you were looking for, try a new search!" followed with a search box, and the results are listed under that. I think this is very misleading. According to the book Don't Make Me Think!, a good web design should be straightforward and clear that does not need users to think too much while using it(Krug, 2005). Also, I think the designers of Gopher Mafia Games didn't do well on putting theirselves in the mindset of their users. Although I understand why they used dark theme is probably because of the games, they should have done more user studies to know the true feelings of users about the theme. Additionally, it is obvious that designers are not familiar with users' searching habit, and misleading text on the result page is a good example. I think this also reflects that there isn't a close contact between designers and users. After the design hits the street, continued awareness of users and their real needs is still required for good designers (Lewis, C. & Rieman, J). Designers need to track and change the design based on the real situation.

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

Procedure: M clicked on the “FAQ” tab on the navigation bar and scrolled down, then she found the question” What is the Gopher Mafia Games Return Policy” and the answer showed up after she clicked on that question.

Observer Note: M finished this task very fast. However, several problems occurred during the process. First, it was really difficult to scroll the web page. M has tried several times until she scrolled down successfully. Second, the text of question disappeared after she clicked on it (as shown below, the text was supposed to show up in the yellow box). She felt very confused at the beginning. I think this, again, shows the theme of the website is terrible. During the lecture, we have discussed that color contrast plays a big role on the design, therefore, I think designers should have chosen a better color schema with distinct contrast.

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

Procedure: M continued scrolling down on the same page and found the question “How do I schedule an event?” and clicked on it to see the answer. By following the instruction in the answer, she clicked “Contact Us” and she was directed to that page. Then she changed the “Subject” from “Questions” to “Events”. But she didn’t really send the message to Gopher Mafia Games.

Observer Note: This task went pretty smoothly. However, M experienced the same problems as described in task 2. The question and "Contact Us” link in the answer disappeared again when M moved the pointer on them. This also makes me think that Gopher Mafia Games website has poor accessibility. According to the article Accessibility Is Not Enough, a good design should work for different groups of disabled people and this requires much more concerns and consideration(Nielsen, 2005). It is obvious that this website is not friendly for people with disabilities and designers really should work on this.

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

Procedure: M first went back to the homepage and slowly scrolled down as she read the text on the homepage and tried to find the address. In the end, she found the address of Gopher Mafia Games at the bottom of the homepage, under CONTACT INFO.

Observer Note: It is interesting that the scrolling went much more smoothly on the homepage comparing to the FAQ page. I think this process shows M's browsing habit(try to find the address on the homepage) and shows that M is uncertain about her thoughts(scrolling slowly).

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.

Procedure: The user first spent some time understanding the question because she had no idea about Magic the Gathering. Then, she read through the homepage but didn’t find anything relatable, so she went back to the FAQ page and clicked on the question “Do you buy Magic the Gathering singles and/or collections?” and found the answer under it.

Observer Note: I was surprised that M did not use the search tool. I think this is probably because she saw the related question on FAQ page while she was finishing the tasks before. Since this task was finished on the FAQ page, the problems from the previous tasks appeared again(disappeared text). Also, since M does not play board game, it took her sometime to understand the Magic the Gathering.