USABILITY TESTING OF HOTWIRE.COM Presented By: Julian Archer, Ilene Appel, Lindsay Day, Abigail Gaston

Outline  What Is hotwire.com?  Who are the users?  Task List  User feedback  Recommendations  Questions

What is Hotwire.com?  Travel site that offers hotels, airfare, car rentals, cruises, and travel deals at a discounted price  There is a catch to some of their deals  Cannot see hotel name before you pay for the hotel  Cannot see plane arrival/departure times and airline name for the special airfare rates They do have many that you can see times and airline  Our usability testing focuses on hotel booking, air travel, and cruises

Who are the users?  User Profile 1  College Student Ages  Traveling with a friend or significant other  Possibly looking for: An affordable weekend trip Last minute trip  User Likes Cheap travel Continental Breakfast Non stop flights Bar at the hotel  User dislikes Expensive trips

Who are the users?  User Profile 2  Middle aged to older adult  Traveling with family or significant other  Possibly looking for: Family friendly trips Package deals Multiple rooms Affordable  User likes  Pools  Continental breakfast  Area Attractions/ Entertainment  User dislikes:  Noisy areas  No local attractions  Expensive trip  Smoking

Task List  User Profile 1  College Student booking a Spring Break trip  College Student booking a last minute weekend trip  Newlyweds looking for a good hotel deal  Your parents are coming into town for the weekend and you are trying to find them an affordable hotel

Task List  User Profile 2  You are booking a cruise for you and your spouse  Booking a weekend trip to go visit an out of town friend  Looking for a good hotel deal for a trip for you and one other person  Your family and friends are coming into town for an important event and you are trying to find them affordable hotels  You are trying to find a trip that is family friendly

User Feedback  In general, hotwire is easy to navigatehotwire  Couldn’t find how to search by cruise departure port (Side note: Those that were tested earlier in the semester had this issue. Those who were tested more recently did not have this issue because hotwire updated their website)cruise departure port  Should combine search by port and search by destination into one searchport and search  Cruise information is hard to read Cruise  Did not want to use help and some had trouble finding the help

User Feedback  All users did not like that they could not see the hotel name hotel name  Users found the hotel map very confusing and said they would not use ithotel map  Liked the hotel amenities iconsamenities icons

Heuristic Evaluation  Good Heuristics  There are clear exits. On each screen there is an area where the traveler can refine their search.  It is clear when the screen is updating.  Compared to other travel sites the pages are not crowded with information or ads.  Overall, the site is user friendly

Bad Heuristics  Drop-down menu items should be clear and easy to read. On hotwire, selectable items within specific search menus are grouped too close together; text is too light; and all the letters are capitalized.  Map display of potential hotel locations should be easy to read, with options available to specify where user does not want to be located. For example, no hotel at a distance greater than 2 miles from a specific attraction can be booked. The maps also do not have a key that explains the green area is where your hotel will potentially be located  On every page, the important tabs at the tops of the pages are grayed out.

Bad Heuristics  User’s should be aware of system limitations before or during the initial stages of a time consuming task. Hotwire does not make it clear to novice users that they are not allowed to reveal the name of a hotel before it is booked.

Recommendations  Tabs should be bolded & bigger to draw attention to those areas  Have a key that explains what the green area on the map is. Also have a separate list of area attractions and restaurants for those who do not like to read maps.  The two cruise searches should be combined into one.  Display important notes next to frequently clicked areas (e.g. search menus) instead of hiding them in the help menu that people will naturally avoid using

Recommendations  Give user the ability to select area on potential hotel location map that they do not want to stay.  Design expandable calendars where users can zoom out and look at a yearly projection.

Questions?