Alex Edwards

March, 2015

Usability Analysis of Kansascity.com

Test Preparation: I was really shocked at how plain the site looked at first

glance. Plain isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To me there was just enough information on the

home page for my liking. A main story, along with the latest news is right where it should

be, above the fold. After I loaded the page for the first time, I decided to go through the tasks

myself.

The first task was to find the films that are nominated for best picture of the 87th

Academy Awards. I quickly decided instead of using the entertainment navigation icon I was

going to use the search tool on the Kansascity.com website. I typed in the words, “film

nominations for best picture in the Academy Awards.” The top search results were a bunch

of “photo galleries” of the 87th Annual Academy Awards. It took me a while to find what a

wanted, but I eventually found the nominees. The reason it took me a while is because I

clicked on the first “photo gallery”. This gallery gave me just photos of the awards that had

already taken place. I was looking for more of a list rather photos of the event. I was

confused as to why my words in the search bar didn’t give me the results I wanted at the

top. I scrolled down in the search results using a “magic mouse” which is a wireless touch

mouse that is only used for Macbooks. I soon found a story with a headline that gave me the

idea it contained the information I was looking for. “Oscar’s best picture nominations are an

elite eight, and that’s just fine with me” surly this article contained the information I need, it

did!

The second part of the first task was to find when the Oscars will air on television. I

once again used the search tool in the Kansascity.com website. I typed in the words, “when

will the Oscars air on television”. The results again were mainly “photo galleries”. I clicked

on the first link which titled “PHOTOS: Oscars nominations are announced”. I was skeptical

about whether or not the information I was looking for was going to be in this article. The

first thing I noticed was a photo of what I assumed was one of the films nominated. There

was a caption to the left of the photo. I skimmed the caption looking for numbers, most

likely if the airtime was going to be displayed it would be in numbers. After a few seconds of

skimming I found the airtime. February 22nd 2015 was when the Oscars were televised.

The Second task was to order reprints of a story in the “816” section of a story that I

had interest in. I chose to use the article titled, “For Missouri Principal of Year, no day is

routine at LS West”. I skimmed the page looking for a print button, but couldn’t find one

about the fold. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and found a line of social media buttons,

this line also included a button that looked like a backwards “reply” button. I hovered over

the icon, a list of items was displayed below the icon. One of the items was to order reprints

of the story. I clicked on the icon which took me to a completely different website called,

Mcclatchyreprints.com. I then clicked on the “request a reprint, e-print, poster or plaque

quote” icon. The icon took me to a form to fill out my information. I began to fill out all of my

personal information; name, address, birthdate, etc. Closer to the end of the form I was

required to put in the name of the article which I did not remember the name of the article

so I had to go back to the Kansascity.com website to retrieve the name of the article. Once I

found out the name of the article I went back to the reprint site to continue where I left off.

The site did not remember any of my information, which was very upsetting. I eventually

finished putting in my information and proceeded to request a reprint.

The Third task was to find out what events would take place in the next week in

Jackson and Cass counties. I once again used the search tool provided by kansascity.com. I

typed in the words “upcoming events in Jackson county”. The results once again came up

with “Photos”. I scrolled down to see if I could find an article that could provide my

information. Sure enough I found an article titled “Community calendar of events Jackson

and Cass counties”. This task so far was the easiest, giving dates and descriptions of the

events in both counties.

Task Four was to search for jobs on Kansascity.com. For this task I knew I could

probably find job postings under “classifieds”. I hovered over the classified navigation icon,

there was a form where I could type in; keywords, city, and state. I typed in “teaching” for

the keywords, “Lees Summit” for the city, and “Missouri” for the state. I clicked “find jobs”,

but the page wouldn’t load. I refreshed the page multiple times but nothing. I repeated to do

this multiple times but nothing happened. I typed in different keywords and city, thinking

that there were no teaching jobs in Lees Summit. Yet there were no search results. I would

rate this as an incompletion for the task.

The second part of task Four was to find a job listing and share it using social media.

I chose to search for a job in Independence Missouri, with a keyword of sales. The search

took me to careerbuilder.com. Instantly I was able to look at more than 100 job postings for

sales in the past thirty days. I picked the first one I saw, which was a sales position at the

vitamin shoppe. I was unable to find a way to post a job with social media. The options I was

able to do were; save job position, email, print, or report. I would consider this to also be an

incomplete task.

Tester 1: David Edwards

My first tester is my father David Edwards. David is a 51 year old male, and has a

profession of an entrepreneur. David owns his own business called Strikerz Entertainment

Center, located in Independence, and Sedalia Missouri. David is also partner in CEAH

Realtors of the greater Kansas City Metro. David lives in the Kansas City Metro, he is a

subscriber to the Kansas City Star. However David does not look at the news content on

their website. Rather he reads the traditional paper every morning. David is very keen with

computers, working with emails and spread sheets daily. David also buys products from

ecommerce sites for Strikerz Entertainment Center.

David is my high-experience tester.

Environment for David Edwards

Location of test: The location of the test was at his CEAH Realtors office where he is

on his computer the majority of his day.

Physical environment: David’s office is a corner office, his office space is rather

large. He has a three-piece desk that holds two 27 inch monitors. His office also contains a

45 inch wall mounted flat screen TV that displayed a show of the stock market during the

entire test. The lighting in the room was natural light that from the floor to ceiling windows

that ran the entire length of his office. The only other light in the room was one artificial

bulb that came from his lamp from behind his desk.

Technical environment: David has two 27 inch Macintosh monitors, which are

connected for swapping windows between both screens. Both monitors display 2560 x

1440 pixels per inch. David has AT&T U-verse at his office, this is shared between himself

and 13 other employees. David uses Ethernet connection, and his internet download speed

was at 58 Mbps. David’s favorite browser is Google Chrome, which is was he used during

the entire test. David does not run any browser add-ons.

Tester 2: Ryan Winner

My second tester is Ryan Winner, and he is a 22-year-old male. Ryan is a reasonable

tester, because he is about 30 years younger than my first tester, which will bring a lot of

differences. Ryan is from the Blue Springs Missouri area, and he is an employee for Garb’s

Lawn Care. Ryan is not a college graduate, but did attend for one semester. Ryan is my low-

experience tester; his age has nothing to do with my determination. Ryan tends to use the

Internet about 3-5 hours a week. Which is much more different than tester one.

Environment for Ryan Winner

Location of test: The location of the test was at his home, where he lives with his

two parents and Ryan’s own two and a half year old son. His son is only at his house every

other four days. He uses his computer and the Internet mainly in the kitchen, dinning room

area.

Physical environment: Ryan’s kitchen was quite crammed when it came to living

with only three other people. I guess when it comes to newly born children, their things

seem to be placed everywhere. The lighting was mainly artificial light which came from the

chandelier that hung above the kitchen table. On top of all of the toys and diaper creams, a

cat named Joey made an entrance on the kitchen table about every 30 minutes I was

conducting the test.

Technical environment: Ryan used a 13 inch Macbook Pro desktop. Monitor

resolution was 1280 x 800 pixels per inch. Ryan used a wifi connection to get on the

internet. His internet provider is Time Warner Cable. His connection speed at the beginning

of the test was 22 Mbps. Ryan’s favorite browser is Safari. Ryan did not use any browser add

ons.

Test Results

Initial Site Thoughts:

David Edwards Report: David’s first comment of the home page of

Kansascity.com was: “wow this is much better than nytimes.com”, which is David’s favorite

news website. David also said the navigation bar was concise and easy to read. David liked

the weather icon in the top left corner. He also liked that the website placed the latest news

in the center of the homepage.

Ryan Winners Report: Ryan’s first impression of the home page was: “I really

like all of the navigation buttons at the top of the homepage”. Ryan talked a lot about how

the font size was a little too big. He would like to see more content at the top of the page, so

he didn’t have to scroll down the page to see more.

Task 1: Determine the following information about the 87th Annual Academy Awards:

David: What films are nominated for best picture?

David first said out loud what he was going to do and then proceeded to do exactly

that. David said “I’m using my mouse to click on the entertainment navigation button, then

the sub menu button, movies. Hoping to find an article about the Academy Awards, but

since the Awards have already taken place I don’t think I will be able to unless I scroll a lot.”

David scrolled down the results for about 20 seconds, and found nothing. He then noticed

the search tool button and typed in the words, “list of nominated films for best picture for

the Academy Awards” using his wireless keyboard. He clicked on the first article that came

up in the search results. “Photo gallery: Oscar nominations announced Thursday”

Apparently David is a movie fanatic and has seen every movie that was nominated, just by

looking at the photos display in the gallery he could tell me which movies were nominated.

After going through six of the photos he found his answer.

Answer: American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The

Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, and Whiplash

Completed: Yes

David: When will the Oscars air on television?

After asking David to find this, he immediately had the answer. David said “Well as I

was looking at the photo gallery that I used for the first part of the task, I noticed there was

a caption to the left of the gallery. At the end of the caption, it said the same thing, the air

date”. David typed in the same keywords into the search tool “list of nominated films for

best picture for the Academy Awards”. He quickly clicked on the same article as above and

told me when the Academy Awards would air on television.

Answer: February, 22 2015

Completed: Yes

Ryan: What films are nominated for best picture?

Using his arrow keys on his computer, he scrolled down on the homepage looking

for an article that could possibly have the information. After scrolling down to the bottom

he said “wow I can’t believe that there isn’t a story about it!”. I asked him why he thought

that and he said, “well the Awards just happened last week”. I knew he was incorrect but I

did not correct him. He proceeded to go to the Entertainment navigation button at the top of

the page. He selected the submenu button “movies”. After the page loaded he began to scroll

down the page using the arrows keys. After scrolling down to the bottom of the page he

started to get frustrated as to why there wasn’t an article about the nominations. Staying on

the entertainment page, he scrolled back to the top of the page to find the navigation menu.

He clicked on the entertainment button again, but this time he selected the TV submenu.

Once the page loaded he scrolled to the bottom of the page, once again he was getting

frustrated because he could not find an article about the Awards. He finally scrolled to the

top of the page and clicked on the search tool and typed in, “film nominations for Academy

awards”. The search results were the same as David’s, except Ryan scrolled half way down

to an article that was not a photo gallery. “’Birdman,’ ’Budapest’ top Oscar nominations with

nine nods each.” Ryan began to read the article using his arrow keys to scroll through the

article. After about a solid two minutes he had the answer to the test question.

Answer: American Sniper, The Imitation Game, Bird Man, Selma, Boyhood, The

Theory Of Everything, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Whiplash.

Completed: Yes

Ryan: When will the Oscars air on television?

Answer: Ryan went back to the home page while I was asking this question. To back

to the home page he clicked on the Kansas City Star logo above the navigation bar in the

header of the website. Once he got back to the home page he clicked on the entertainment

navigation button and then selected the submenu TV. He said “the reason I clicked on the TV

button is to see if I can find a list of scheduled times certain events would be aired”. Ryan

scrolled once again to the bottom of the page using his arrow keys. He was getting

frustrated once again and couldn’t find what he was looking for. He then when back to the

top of the page and clicked on the entertainment button again. This time he selected the

movies submenu button. He said, “well maybe the list will be in the movies section, because

the Awards are about movies”. He scrolled down to the bottom of the page, this time using

his track pad on his computer. Once he got to the bottom of the page he clicked on a button

that displayed to go to page 2. The page loaded and he scrolled through the articles

displayed using his arrow keys this time. Not finding what he was looking for he started to

get frustrated, saying profane words, and cussing out the website. He scrolled back to the

top of the page using his track pad and clicked on the search tool and typed in the keywords

“when did the Academy Awards air”. The same results were given as the ones before when

he used the search tool. Ryan said “ Well I didn’t see the time given in the article I looked at

early so I give up”.

Completed: NO

Recommendations for Task 1: The first part of task one was a full success, however

there is still room for improvement when it comes to giving clear content for the user. Both

users were looking for a list of the nominated films, rather they had to settle for a less likely

article. My suggestion for this part of the task is, to “Match between system and the real

world”. Meaning that if the user were to type in; ”list of nominated films for best picture of

the Academy Awards”, the search results would be just that. Search tools can be very helpful

to users because it allows the user to somewhat control their own path, rather than

following a series of navigation tools.

The second part of task one was a half success. I would recommend that

Kansascity.com do these following improvements to their website. Number one, give

suggestions to the reader on the side of the article he or she click on to give them better

options, rather making the user hit the back button to look at the search results. This will

give the user a better chance of finding what he or she is looking for.

Ex. of suggested stories

Before:

After:

Task 2: Find the section of the site title “816” which covers community news.

David: In this section, find a story of interest and go through the step to order

reprints of the article. Go as far as possible without actually ordering.

Upon asking the question David used his wireless mouse and clicked on the news

navigation button. He said that he didn’t use the search tool for this task, because since the

question stated there was a section named “816”. After clicking the news navigation button,

he clicked on the 816 sub menu button. The 816 page loaded and David said that he liked

how the layout of the page stayed the same as the home page. He scrolled down the page

using his arrow keys and found a recent article in the middle titled, “Calvary bible College

seeking employers to hire students for work-study program”. He clicked on the title of the

article, and waited roughly two seconds while the article loaded. David scanned the article

for a few seconds looking for a button that could take him to order reprints. He scrolled

down the page using his arrow keys. Once he got to the bottom of the article he found that

there were social media icons at the bottom. David said, “the icons I see are Facebook,

Twitter, Google +, and an icon that looks like a forward button. I don’t see anything that I

can click on that will let me order reprints”. David scrolled back to the top of the page

making sure he didn’t miss anything using his mouse this time. David then scrolled back to

the bottom of the page using his arrow keys, he then used his mouse to hover over the social

media icons. Once he hovered over the “forward looking button” he said he found a link to

allow him to order reprints. David clicked on the link, which took him to a different website

as describe early. Once the page loaded David noticed that there was a list of services at the

right of the page. He used his mouse to click on the link “reprints”. This link took him to a

page that described what the reprints were. He looked down on the left side of that page

and found an oval that said the words “request a reprint, e-print, poster or plaque quote”.

David clicked on the oval, this took him to a form page to fill out his information. David

proceeded to fill out his personal information. At the bottom of the page the form requested

the article information that he wanted to order reprints for. David said, “I think if I go back

to the article in the same browser window, this website will erase all of the information I

put in”. David opened another tab in Safari and typed in kansascity.com into the url. He

followed his same steps to find the article that he wanted to reprint. David found the article

and then placed the information into the form.

Completed: Yes

Ryan: In this section, find a story of interest and go through the steps to order

reprints of the article. Go as far as possible without actually ordering.

After I asked the task question Ryan began to look for the 816 section. Ryan said

“I’m going to click on the classifieds navigation button, because I think that would be the

title for local ads”. Once Ryan clicked on the navigation button, he was saddened that the

816 section was not there. Ryan then began to click on every navigation button from right to

left looking for the 816 section. Ryan finally clicked on the “news” navigation button, there

he found the 816 section and clicked. Once the page loaded Ryan began to look at the

articles in the middle of the page. He scrolled down half way of the page with his mouse. He

then said “I think I’m going to chose the article titled, ‘Truman Corners makeover could start

next month in Grandview”. After clicking on the article title the page took over eight seconds

to start loading. Ryan became impatient and refreshed the page using the page refresh

button in his browser window. Finally after refreshing the page the page loaded within

three seconds. Ryan said “I don’t see anything yet that I can click on the reprint the article”.

Ryan scrolled down the article to find something he could click on using his arrow keys.

Ryan did say he noticed the social media icons at the end of the article but he did not hover

over them. He continued to scroll to the footer of the website looking for something that

would take him to reprint the article. After looking at the options in the footer he decided to

go back to the top of the page using his mouse. Once he was back at the top of the page, he

began to skim the page to make sure he didn’t miss any signs. After two solid minutes of

searching the page, Ryan gave up.

Completed: NO

Recommendations for Task 2: After going through the tasks with both of the testers I

decided that this website could use some work with their way of helping users navigate

their way through their website. I noticed there were two main problems with trying to find

the section title “816”. Instead of having one news navigation button, I propose to have a

“local” main nav, and “news” main nav for national news. Another recommendation I have

is for the reprint link to be more visible to the user. Have a link at the top and the bottom

the simply say the words, “order reprints”. I would also recommend to have the social

media icons at the beginning of the article and at the end. For the process of ordering

reprints, my first user had to open another window fearing he would lose the information

he placed in the form, because he had to go find the name of the article. I would propose to

have a form that is already filled in with the current article information the user wants

reprinted. This is help the users tremendously.

Examples of recommendations for Task Two on the next page.

Ex. of recommendations:Navigation bar before.

Navigation bar after.

Reprints/ Social Media before:

reprints/ Social Media After:

Task 3: Determine what events will take place in the following week in Jackson and Cass

counties. (That is, the seven days following the day of today).

David: When asked to find the events for the next week from the day of the test,

David immediately said, “I think I am going to use the 816 navigation bar again, because this

is the local news for the Missouri side of the city”. David clicked on the “news” navigation

button at the top of the page, then he selected the “816” submenu. Once the page loaded

David began to say, “I’m looking for an article that has the word ‘Calendar’ in it”. He scrolled

quite a ways down the page using his arrow keys, going extremely slow, to make sure he

didn’t miss anything important. He reached the bottom of the page. He reached the middle

of the page, David said “I notice the header saying, ’more for 816’ , below that I see an article

titled, ‘Community calendar of events in Jackson and Cass counties’ “. David click on the title

of the article with his mouse, this link to him to a list of events with their specific dates that

were happening in the specific counties the following week.

Answer:

Complete: Yes

Ryan: After Ryan had listened and then repeated the question, he began to look on

the top of the page, for a calendar button. Ryan came up short; there was not a calendar

button at the top of the home page, or on any page for that matter. Ryan decided that he was

going to use the search tool. Ryan typed in the keywords, “future events in Jackson and Cass

counties”. Once the search results came up Ryan said, “YES!!! I found the calendar”. He

began to rattle off the events names and dates, and he started to realize the other part of the

question, the event must be for the following week of the test. Ryan clicked the back button

with his mouse to get to his results for the search. He began to scrolled down the page with

his arrow keys, Ryan said “okay now I am looking at when the last time the article was

updated, and none of them are recent”. At this time Ryan’s son began to cry from

downstairs. Being a good father Ryan stopped the test, and attended his crying infant. After

being out of the room for about five minutes Ryan returned to his computer. Unfortunately

his “free time” on the site had run out. Meaning, that you must be a member to have

unlimited access to all of the content. Ryan was using Safari, but now switched to Google

Chrome, so he could finish the tasks. After loading the page in Google Chrome, Ryan said,

“I’m going to use the local “816” navigation button under the news navigation to see if I can

find a up to date calendar”. Ryan selected the “816” navigation button and the page began to

load. Ryan swiftly scrolled down the page with his mouse, saying “I’m going fast, because I

know what I’m looking for”. After less than two seconds Ryan had found the article he

needed. Selecting the same article as David(tester 1).

Answer: Same as David’s.

Completed: Yes

Recommendations for Task 3: The only thing that went wrong with this task, was that

the content from the search bar was not up to date, and there was no local calendar in the

header or the footer of the page.

Examples of change.

Before with no calendar on header.

After with calendar on header.

The same link would be displayed on every page, top and bottom.

Task 4: Determine the following information related to finding a job:

David: Search for a job in any specific city (tester can choose) using any keyword.

David first realized the process the needed to be done to complete the task. David

said, “I believe that my best luck to find jobs would be under the “classifieds” navigation

button. David did exactly just that, he clicked on the “classifieds” button, and dropped down

a submenu that had a form that David began to fill out using the key words. “Cook,

Independence, Missouri”. He then selected the button that said “Find Jobs”. The page

flashed, but stayed on the home page. David stared at his computer screen confused and

retyped the keywords into the form. Once again David selected the “Find Jobs” button, the

same thing happened. David getting frustrated, decided to stop doing the task and move on.

Answer: nothing

Completed: NO

Ryan: Search for a job in any specific city (tester can choose) using any keyword.

Ryan also knew that the classifieds navigation button would hold the information he

was looking for. Ryan clicked on the “classifieds” navigation button, and then began to fill in

the keywords “mechanics, blue springs, Missouri”, into the form provided on the website.

Ryan then selected “find jobs”, the same thing happened to Ryan that happened to David,

the screen flashed, then loaded the homepage. Ryan, thought that the site had just had a

small “hiccup”. Ryan then went back to the form, and filled in the keywords once again, this

time instead of selecting “find jobs”, he noticed a link that was labeled, “view all top jobs”.

Ryan clicked on the “view all top jobs”, and then the screen went white. After about twelve

seconds of a white screen, Ryan refreshed the page using the refresh button in the browser

window. The screen was still white, and stayed white for at least fifteen more seconds. Ryan

went back to the kansascity.com website, and used the search tool to try and find a list of

job postings in blue springs, typing in the words “mechanic jobs in blue springs”. There

were no job postings about mechanics in Blue Springs, the only articles displayed were

articles about teachers and principals in Blue Springs. Ryan began to get frustrated, and

gave up.

Answer: Nothing

Completed: NO

David: Find a job listing and share it using social media.

David looked at me with a puzzled face. He asked “I can’t find a job posting, so there

is no way that I can post one on social media. I have a better off chance just going to

careerbuilder.com and finding a job, the link just doesn’t work”.

Answer: Would rather go to a different site to find local job postings.

Completed: NO

Ryan: Find a job listing and share it using social media.

Ryan’s question was “Do I have to use the kansascity.com site? If I do then I don’t

think that I would be able to complete the task”. I responded “Yes you must use the

Kansascity.com cite”. I left the option up to him, to see if he could find a job and post it to a

social media account. Ryan decided to try and figure out how to find a job and post it. Ryan

began to do the same things that he did the part one of this task, yet there were no search

results. He finally stated, “I don’t think I can do it man, I’ve never tried this hard to get job

postings online, this should be one of the easiest things to do”. I asked if that meant he gave

up and he said, “yes”.

Answer: Never worked so hard to trying and get job postings online.

Completed: NO

Recommendations for Task 4: Instead of using a form to fill out from

careerbuilder.com, which is obviously not working. I would suggest actually posting a job

log type of thing every week. The employer would pay to have their name and job titled

displayed on the log, and make it easy to search. Making things easy for people to find are

really good for websites, people refer websites all of the time.

Testing Conclusions:

Completion rate: 6/12 completed tasks, between the both of the testers, making it a

50% completion rate. This rate is extremely low compared to the typical completion rate of

78%. I would say that the rate has to do more with the site not working properly, or the fact

that it was so hard to find certain information.

Similarities and differences: Both of the users had their own uniqueness. David, was

very quick and new what he was looking for. David also used both his mouse and arrow

keys to scroll up and down through a page. Where Ryan used his mouse to only select items,

but mostly used his arrow keys to scroll up and down through a page. Both of their thought

processes were completely different at the beginning of tasks, but closer to the end of the

task Ryan would usually come up with the correct information.

All in all I thought this was an okay test, I have given good feedback as to what I

believe should be changed on the site, to make these tasks much more easy to complete for

the users of kansascity.com