Working Title: San Diegan’s Guide To Visit India
Author: Mridusmita Borah
Date: May 7th, 2009

Brief Profile of Users:

Three users were interviewed for the Usability Testing. Two of them were a couple and American citizens. The husband is of Indian origin and the wife is an American. Both have never been to India and want to visit during a holiday. The third subject is an Indian citizen (from New Delhi, India) and currently a Graduate student at San Diego. They thought this website is useful for them to get first-hand information about India and also serve the needs of those San Diegan’s who want to visit Delhi and Agra.

Think Aloud Task:

I plugged-in my subjects saying that they are going for an online tour to India and apparently assigned them the following while visiting my website:

• Please observe/remark the first impressions of the site.
• Do you think/feel the need of some more detail or shortcut information that I should use in the site?
• Browse the links and see if all the links and information’s are in sequence and assessable to you?

Summary of Think Aloud

All three users appreciated the design, pictures and write-up of the homepage which served as the gateway for other pages. One uttered the need of more detailed information of contact details of shopping centers and to write catchphrase for each page. One found the pictures too fuzzy and mentioned a one line description about the specialty of picture would be more convenient for the browser. They were excited to get first-hand information about Delhi and Agra from the website.      

Summary of Posttest Interview

Conversations from the three subjects revealed that the configuration and sequence of the links are properly framed. But instead of putting all the pictures vertically in each page, it could be arranged along with the texts. Also, instead of mentioning the texts for each page in detail, some words could be linked to websites likes Wikipedia.
All of them said that, as they clicked each page the website disclosed an antique outlook which all three of them appreciated.

Findings to be Implemented

As a result of my usability test, I will make the following modifications:

• Add contact details of shopping centers.
• Add a slogan for each page.
• Reduce the number of pictures and arrange some pictures along with texts wherever it suits.
• Mention the specialty/context of each picture.
• Link crucial words to more informative web-links.

Findings that will not be Implemented

Two of the subjects commented on reducing the number of total pages in my website and sink two pages into one. I will not reduce the number of pages. Instead, I will connect each page and sub-page which will provide broader information to the browsers and also serve the purpose of my sitemap which is the backbone of my website.

(Words-480)