Date: 07/09/2019

To: USGA
From: Private Corp E (Salad, Isak, Tim, Kareem)
Subject: Website Usability and Navigation

This handout looks at the original set of steps made for helping people navigate through your
website on accessing historical national water-use. While the original set of instructions is well
made and very easy to comprehend there were some improvements that could be made. We
constructed a usability test and determined what steps were properly displayed and what parts
needed revision. After testing multiple users that will remain anonymous we asked them a few
questions based on their experience with the steps and our consensus is below

Test Objectives
Our usability test was made to resolve any issues with the instructions that would have caused
any frustration to the user and affirm the quality of the steps. During the testing we discovered
that most users were able to access the national water-use data even through some frustration.
Our intention for this test was to identify whether or not the visual aids were helpful or hindering
and if the format of the website was generally appealing to users.

Results
Areas of Strengths
This original set of instructions had many strengths to it. Most of these strengths have to deal
with organization and information. For example, the site uses a step by step numerical
organization which keeps the reader going in order. Skinny red circles highlight crucial sections
in the images and charts. This helps the reader pinpoint important details easily. With all this,
finding data is simple and quick. The different colors keep the reader interested and also add a
deeper level to organization. It was just the right amount of colors to separate different parts.

Areas for Improvement

While this website might not have many major issues, there are many minor issues.. The use of
white space could be improved slightly to help with the organization. There was also a
suggestion of adding more hyperlinks within the instructions for help. One of the other major
points was to include the instructions on the page that is being acted upon. This would be better
than switching from page to page, which decreases efficiency. Finally, some wording within the
site is difficult for those without previous knowledge to understand. The document then does not
explain its words or what it mentions making it even harder.

Questionnaire
Closed Ended Questions
1. Are the visual aids helpful?
2. Do you feel that you would be able to navigate the website without any more assistance?
3. Do you think there is a reasonable amount of white space?

1
  Yes the visuals were helpful in instructions.
 Yes the three of the readers were comfortable with following the website through its
instructions.
 Yes, white space is used well but could be improved in some spots.

Open Ended Questions

1. How easy is it for you to understand the steps?
2. How easy is it for you to understand the article?
3. How would you improve this webpage? (Visually and organizationally)

 Two of the three participants stated that it was easy to follow instructions.
 Understanding the data and information is difficult due to unknown words.
 Borders on images and charts would help visuals along with small white space changes.

Recommendations
The Test user’s recommendations were insightful and gave us a clear path to go down to
make the final version of the instructions. The first user gave us the suggestion to make the
website interactive; however we found it made the website too “busy”. User two found wording
to be problematic and felt graphics needed to be updated, we took this feedback and changed
“choose” to “select” and we updated the screen captures to have a more unified look with
rectangles indicating where to click, instead of circles. Lastly we were suggested to reduce white
space, which we did.