usability test for nascar- carlton wilcoxson

8/10/2019 Usability Test for Nascar- Carlton Wilcoxson

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Usability Test for Nascar.com

Test Preparation

Before conducting field test with participants, I decided to run through the tasks on the website

to see what user would encounter. Upon looking at the website, I notice how busy and cluttered the

homepage is. As a user, I found myself a bit overwhelmed by the amount of content and navigation baroption there were. I think this is important to note for, not every user will have a set list task or any idea

of what exactly they are looking for on the website. Because users may not have a specific destination,

scrolling through the website to find something that could peak interest could be difficult due the many

option and link found on the homepage.

Finding information on the Fantasy Challenge task, seemed to be a simple task. The navigation

bar helped by having a title that stated “Fantasy”. From there I was to see the Grid Challenge and be

redirected to a page that had all necessary information. At the top of this page I was able to see the

number of perfect score. Underneath was a tournament style chart that showed the current fantasy

standings and where the final race will be held.

For the next task, thing were a bit difficult. When trying to find information on driver Aric

Almirola I clicked on the driver tab in the navigation for I didn’t know which drop down would lead me

to the information I was looking for. The decision led me to a page with drivers pictures, car number,

rank, and 2014 stats. I used the “ctrl + F” function to find driver Aric Almirola. Fortunately the picture did

link to a driver profile page so could find his past in information under the tab “Driver Info”.

The third task was pretty simple as well. I went to the search bar in the corner of the website,

where I typed in the “Mobile 1 Question”. I must note that the search magnifying glass was a bit small

and hard to find. User with impaired vision may have hard time find it. The search took me a page with

results, where a link to the “Question of the week” was found under the 2nd search listing. From the link

I was able to watch the video and share the video pretty easily.

The fourth task of finding the information for the Product Assistant internship proved to be

difficult because of the wording on the site. Nascar.com like most websites that I am familiar with, had

a link labeled “Careers” in its footer. Once clicked, I was redirected to a search page for Nascar -related

careers. I typed in internships to get a full list of intern opportunities. I notice that of all the listings for

internships, Product Assistant did not specify whether it was a job or internship in the title listing. The

ambiguity in title made me question whether or not I found the right listing.

The final task was pretty to compete for I am more familiar with the site and the fantasy page

as well. Some things that I’m particularly interested with when conducting field test is the user’s

interaction with the toolbar. I also want to pay close attention to user’s attitude when searching driver

information since the information is spread over multiple page and not in one specific place. Finally, Ifound that all task are able to be completed but according to Nielsen the average competition rate for a

task is 78%. I am curious to see if my participants will complete 100% of the specified tasks.

Choosing Participants

Tester 1: Ngozi Wogu



Ngozi Wogu is a 20 year old male who happens to international experience being a direct

descendent of Nigeria. He currently is a full-time student majoring in Botany and works part-time for

the library service desk. Ngozi would be a great candidate because he stated that he was a low to

moderate user of the internet spending around 25 hours a week using the internet. Of the time he

spends on the internet 60% is browsing on some of his favorite pages like stickpage.com; a game and

entertainment site. The rest of his time is spent on social media sites as quoted “…mostly Facebook,twitter, and a little Instagram.” Ngozi has no understanding or sport racing in general or of NA SCAR

which eliminates any bias towards the website, for he has no pre-existing attitude towards the content.

Environment for Tester 1

Location of test: 1st floor of the B.D. Owens Library in the Starbucks area. This

place was choosen for it was convenient for the user who had to work later that

day. He was also interested in coffee.

Physical environment: The Starbucks has dim lighting for it is mean to provide an

urban, trendy coffee house-like setting in the B.D. Owens Library. At the time the

space was relatively question with the occasional noise of people have

conversations and the baristas yelling out names for made order for coffee. Ngozi

decided to sit in a leather loveseat for optimal comfort when completing the tasks.

Technical environment: Ngozi completed the tasks on a university provide laptop;

more specifically HP EliteBook. His resolution was set to the recommended seeting

of 1366 x 768. Ngozi chose to use the library setting’s wifi internet access to

complete the task using internet explorer as his browser.

Tester 2: Jack Otis

Jack Otis is a 21 year old caucasian male. Jack is a full-time student majoring in finance

and works part-time for the B.D. Owens Library. Jack is the ideal candidate for he is a high

experience user of the internet spending around 60-80 hours a week on the internet. He spends80% of his time browsing on the internet spending the majority of his time on site like reddit,

youtube, and buzzfeed. The remaining time is spent on social media sites mostly Facebook. Jack

is familiar with the sport of NASCAR but stated that he was not a fan.

Environment for Tester 2

Location of test: Jack expressed that he felt more comfortable in a quiet setting. He

choose to complete the tasks on the 3rd

floor of B.D. Owen Library which is known

as the floor.

Physical environment: Jack conducted his field tests in a private room on the 3rd

floor. There were very few people on the floor at the time and he was particularlyisolated in closed off room. The setting was quiet with no distractions. The room

was well lit with ceiling light covering every inch of the room.

Technical: Jack conducted the field test on a desktop HP computer already establish

in the private room. His resolution was set at 1024 x 768. The desktop was

connected to the internet via Ethernet cable which would provide a faster

connection when compared to the library’s wifi. Jack used Google Chrome as his

browser of choice.



Test Results

Initial Site Thoughts:

Tester 1 Report: Once arriving to the website the user noticed the ads on the website as

well as the “M&M little people” referring the M&M advertisement characters. He

scrolled over the navigation noticing all the options to find information. The user wasimpressed by the feature that allowed user to scroll to the top of the page instantly. He

noted that the homepage had a lot of content but seemed indifferent to the amount of

content.

Tester 2 Report: Initial thought was that the site was sleek. Notice features like the

background and header image. The user did state “these things at the top do piss me off

though…” referring to the automatic drop down of the navigation bar tabs. Explaining

that if he accidently scroll towards the navigation bar that it can get in the way of the

desired content. The user also stated the website was “…kinda bland. I mean it’s sleek

but it’s just white, and black”.

Task 1: “Determine the following the information about the Perfect Chase Grid Fantasy

Challenge.”

Tester 1

How many players have a perfect score?

--Answer: 3678

--Completed: Yes

When and where will the championship race be held?

--Answer: Homestead Miami & Nov. 16th, 2014

--Completed: Yes

Tester 2

How many players have a perfect score?

--Answer: 3678

--Completed: Yes

When and where will the championship race be held?

--Answer: Homestead Miami & Nov. 16th

, 2014

--Completed: No

Recommendations to improve UX for this task: From my observations from the two

participants I think the web site does a decent job of labeling the navigation bar.Both testers were able to find initial information using the navigation bar under the

label “Fantasy”. One of the testers could not find where the championship race as

although it was on the same page as the number of players with perfect scores. My

recommendation is that the tournament style graph should stand out more using

color and bold font. I would like to note that the perfect score players number was

bold and a lot bigger than the tournament chart which made it easier for users to

find necessary information.



Task 2: “Determine the following information about driver Aric Almirola”

Tester 1

His current rank?

--Answer: 16

--Completed: Yes His car number?

--Answer: 43

--Completed: Yes

The year he started racing?

--Answer: 2007

--Completed: no

The number of races he ran in 2010?

--Answer: 9 races

--Completed: yes

His rank in 2011?--Answer: N/A

--Completed: No

Tester 2

His current rank?

--Answer: 16

--Completed: Yes

His car number?

--Answer: 43

--Completed: Yes

The year he started racing?

--Answer: 2007

--Completed: No

The number of races he ran in 2010?

--Answer: 16

--Completed: No

His rank in 2011?

--Answer: N/A

--Completed: no

Recommendations to improve UX for this task: Upon observation of both users,

this serves as an example of how the navigation menu can serve as a distraction.Users could have found there information a lot faster by simple clicking the actual

driver tab. Instead the drop down menu created confusion by offering unwanted

information of the Sprint Cup, All-Nationwide , and stock truck racing. Users should

not have go sort through multiple pages or search results in order to find a driver

profile. Especially since the driver profile has all current and past statistic, news, and

information on the driver. Lastly, in the year by year statistics no listing is shown on

2011.



question in bold font above the summary so the user can determine if they have

interest in this week’s question.

Task 4: Determine the following information about Nascar’s Production Assistant Internship?

Tester 1

The location of the job

--Answer: Charlotte ,NC

--Completed: Yes

Software Skills required

--Answer: Final Cut pro and Adobe Premier editing system

--Completed: Yes

Writing Skills required

--Answer: Writes program script to meet management requirements

--Completed: Yes

Refer this internship notice to a friend

--Answer: Click the “Refer a Friend” tab

--Completed: Yes

Tester 2

The location of the job

--Answer: Charlotte ,NC

--Completed: Yes

Software Skills required

--Answer: Final Cut pro and Adobe Premier editing system

--Completed: No

Writing Skills required--Answer: Writes program script to meet management requirements

--Completed: Yes

Refer this internship notice to a friend

--Answer: Click the “Refer a Friend” tab

--Completed: Yes

Recommendations to improve UX for this task: When redirected to the actual

career page, the website should not open a new tab for it can create clutter in the

browser’s tab. I found that both user were confused when on the find the listing for

its only read “Production Assistant”. User were left to assume that this was an

internship despite not having the word intern or internship in the listing title. Lastly,

heading for requirement would help. Both users had to skim all content on the page

in order to find the necessary information. Headings would provide structure to the

page so user can find information quicker.

Task 5: Return to the Perfect Chase Grid Fantasy Challenge to determine if there are any

additional players with a perfect score.



Tester 1

--Answer: No, number remains the same

--Completed: Yes

Tester 2

--Answer: No, number remains the same

--Completed: Yes

Recommendations to improve UX for this task: Users found this information

relatively quickly. I would recommend some sort of countdown system so user can

know the amount of time before the next race Fantasy Grid Challenge. By doing

this, user can gain insight on when a change in the amount of players with prefect

score may change.

Testing Conclusions:

Completion rate: Tester 1 (low experience user) had a completion rate of about

85% of task (12 out 14 tasks) which is about the average stated of 78% as stated by

Jakob Nielsen. Test 2 (high experience user) had a completion rate of about 71% (10

out of 14 tasks) which is below the average rate of 78%. Leaving my field test total

average completion rate to be about 78%. This provide some validity to Jakob

Nielsen’s finding but more testing would be need to be done over time.

Similarities & differences: Some similarities I notice when conducting field test were

that both user had an immediate interest in the navigation bar. Also, I notice that

when both users using the search they used keywords in order to find information

rather than typing in whole phrases. Lastly, I notice that both user relied on the

website’s search tool in order to find information that was not clear from the

navigation bar.

Some differences noticed, when searching for drivers, my low experience user

would scroll through all the driver. Whereas my high experience user used “crtl+f”

function to find the driver. I think my low experience user is not as familiar with

shortcut or control keyboard functions. I believe the high experience user is familiar

with this function for it is a part of his browsing habit. Next, I notice that my high

experience user was able to quick write a social media headline when sharing content to

Facebook. I am not sure how much experience either user has sharing content but I

would assume that the higher experience user has experience in sharing content.

usability test for nascar- carlton wilcoxson

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