Usability Testing

The TransLink site has a set of applications that it uses to provide transit information to users, collectively known as the Trip Planning tools. From TransLink’s market research team, TransLink knew that the most common reasons that users were coming to the website were to create trip plans or get trip information (bus and train schedules). However, they also knew from the customer feedback logs that many users were frustrated and/or unsuccessful at obtaining the information from the tools provided. Further, because the trip planning tool was a third-party application embedded in the TransLink site, the web logs were not capturing any information about usage, nor had the research team ever done detailed research with customers about this area of the site.

TransLink engaged ADGi to analyze the usability issues of the current tools, and to provide a redesign for them.

The Process

Since there had been little to no research done on the trip planning tools, and because they were the most highly used section of the website (over 90% of people surveyed said that they came to the site for trip information), ADGi knew that defining and analyzing the usability issues of these tools was paramount to creating the redesign.

Given the vast number of users of the site, ADGi created a user research test plan with the following components: an expert review; an online survey (to provide statistical breadth); facilitated face-to-face user testing; a request to IT to obtain the data logs from the third-party application to analyze the data that users were providing when requesting trip information.

The usability tests were conducted in 2008. ADGi provided a report and presentation on their findings to the TransLink stakeholders in early January 2009, and the information provided - particularly the videos showing real users using the tools - met with great enthusiasm and provided a solid business case for the redesign project.

The Solution

Using the information exposed during the user research ADGi provided detailed wireframes for the redesign of the Trip Planning tools. In consultation with ADGi and its internal IT teams, TransLink split the development into two phases. The first changes launched with the redesign of the TransLink site in the spring of 2009 and the majority of the changes were implemented in the fall of 2009.