BLIND AND SIGHTED USER EXPERIENCES WITH A
TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY WEBSITE
Presenter(s)
Usability & Accessibility Center
Kellogg Center, Garden Level
East Lansing MI 48824-1022
Day Phone: 517-353-8977
Fax: 517-432-9541
Email: uac@msu.edu
Presenter #2
Sarah J. Swierenga, Ph.D.,
East Lansing, MI 48824-1022
E-mail: uac@msu.edu
Phone: 517-353-8977
Fax: 517-432-9541
Presenter
#3
Pat Gilbert
Capital Area Transportation Authority
E-mail: pgilbert@cata.org
Phone: 517-394-1100
Fax: 517-394-3733
Research findings from a
transportation authority website usability evaluation with blind users, college
students, downtown commuters, youth, and seniors revealed common and unique
experiences.
Public-oriented websites,
such as transportation authorities, present interesting and complex design
considerations because of wide range of potential users coming to the site to
obtain route and detour information, bus schedules, and fare information.
Middle school students who ride the city bus to school may check the site on
school mornings for route changes due to construction or traffic accidents,
while senior citizens and blind users may use the website to find route
information to get to a doctor’s appointment or a committee meeting across
town. Clearly, the site design must support these types of daily needs for a
diverse audience.
Public transportation organizations have long been concerned with the need
for guidelines and research on websites concerned with Public Transportation
Information (PTI). The guidelines highlight the need for designing these public
sites from the end user’s perspective to help ensure that the site content and
presentation is usable and useful for a variety of user groups (Kenyon, Lyons,
& Austin, 2001). The present study contributes to the research literature
because we were afforded the opportunity to collect both performance and satisfaction
data from several different kinds of users.
Description of Study
User experiences with a public transportation authority website were
evaluated in fifteen one-on-one sessions with downtown commuters, youth,
undergraduate college students, seniors, and screen reader users who are blind.
The purpose of the usability evaluation was two-fold: 1) to identify usability
and accessibility issues with the current website using a systematic
performance-based approach; and 2) to establish a baseline for assessing the
increased usability and accessibility of the redesigned site when it is
produced.
Participants performed several task scenarios using the transportation
authority website, finding general and specific information on the website. We
instructed participants to verbalize any confusion while performing tasks, in
order to identify areas of difficulty, as well as patterns and types of
participant errors when performing typical search tasks. Task scenarios
included looking up route information and times, buying passes online, and
finding the phone number for customer service. We also administered a
post-study questionnaire to address specific aspects of the task scenarios and
to obtain satisfaction ratings. Participants provided additional feedback regarding
suggestions for improving the site. Blind participants using the JAWS for
Windows screen reader also gave feedback about the usability of the website
from an accessibility perspective. The 15 sessions were videotaped, allowing
for a robust video catalog of the user experience study.
Description of Presentation
In the presentation we will discuss several task scenarios and show brief
video clips that illustrate similarities and differences in how the different
types of users interacted with the transportation authority website. In
general, users were quite successful in locating certain information within the
transportation authority website, such as finding the price for a bus pass or
the Customer Service phone number. However, users had more difficulty
understanding the site’s presentation of information pertaining to routes and
times. For example, in one task scenario participants were asked to find a
route from the local mall to the main downtown stop (no transfers required),
and also figure out what time the last bus was leaving the mall on Sunday
night. Most of the downtown commuters, youth, and college students were able to
complete both parts of this task; however, most of the seniors and screen
reader users were unable to complete both parts of the task successfully. They
were able to find the correct route with some effort, but really struggled with
understanding and interacting with the time tables on the bus schedule.
In addition to describing and discussing particular usability and accessibility
concerns with the current transportation authority website, we will also give
examples of potentially appropriate high-level design recommendations for
large-scale public websites, as well as some topics for further research.
Reference
Kenyon, S, Lyons, G., & Austin, J. (2001). Public
transport information Web sites: How to get it right: A best practice guide.
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