Usability Testing on “For sale section in “Craig’s List”

-By Sai Krishna Kovi

Introduction:

“Craig’s list” is mostly used classified advertisement site in united states. As of 2012 it has branches over 720 cities over 60 countries. It was founded by Craig Newmark in 1995 at Sanfransisco Bay Area.It was a local classified and forum site. The site serves departments such as Community, Housing, For sale, Jobs, Resumes etc. It receives nearly 50 billion page views monthly and 60 billion people only from united states visit this site every month. It supports 13 languages. Craig’s list only has 40 employees.

Why I choose This website:

This topic came up for me because once when iam planning to buy a used car in the past I searched in Craig’s list with a price of 5000$-6500$, I really felt frustrating while searching due to irrelevant searches, visibility problems and navigation problems. Though it is a famous and highly visited website it has many drawbacks regarding user experience and web accessibility.so I choose this website for my usability study.

EXPERIMENT:

Firstly, I searched for many instruments in internet and at last stuck at “google forms” which I felt suitable for my study moreover it shows the statistics based up on user’s responses. I gave a small description about why iam doing this study and asked them to record a webcam video if possible

next I framed some basic questions like what’s your name, age etc., this is because it makes the user to involve in to my study or else they will submit answers in a hurry. Next I asked them a few questions as shown below

1. “have you ever used "Craig’s list" before for buying or selling anything”.

2. “If yes what did you bought or sold in it”.

3. “If not, please visit "Craig’s list" at https://www.craigslist.org/ and answer to my questions.”

I gave the site link so that users who ever didn’t use this site before can visit to the site quickly.

And next, I gave a task to them

TASK:

"Please do a small task, search for any car of your choice with price 3000$- 3500$ in "for sale" section and answer the following questions".

And allowed them to perform my task

After that they are asked question as given below

QUESTIONS:

1.what is you’re feeling while navigating to for sale section and finding your choice of car?

2.Do you find any difficulties in navigating if yes can you write them

3. Do you have any following problems

any eye disease do you have long sight or short sight? do you have color blindness? no iam perfect

“I asked this question to note some points about visibility issues of the site, next question will be on visibility”

4.If yes to any of the first three options in the previous question, do you face any problems while navigating to car's in "for sale" section if no just leave this question.

“Many of the answers came “iam perfect” so that they don’t have any eye problems but I didn’t rely on their response so I conducted a field study which i discussed under “Field Study” side heading”.

Next question is,

5.Does the "search for sale" option in "for sale" section showing appropriate product you're searching for?

“I asked this question in order to know does the user getting relevant information through their searches or else they will get frustrated, Me my self-got frustrated once in the past due to the irrelevant information the site shows to us”.

And next I asked,

6.Do you find any difficulties when used This site in mobile devices?

“This question is asked to the user to get their feedback of the site when used in mobile, this is because Craig’s list is having small text and it is visually cluttered and clumsy. So that their feedback will be useful for me while designing a prototype as discussed in Hackos and reddish lessons”.

And next I asked them to rate the website, so that I can get an overall idea of user’s experience with the site.

The last question is

“Do you feel for any necessary changes to be made in "for sale" section of Craig’s list if yes what are they”.

This question is asked to get some useful information from the user so that It will be useful for my study.

The responses which I got from the user’ are moderate because very few members felt difficult with the site but some users gave me some drawbacks of the site ad their suggestions are very useful for my study. I also limited my questions to 10 this is because user’s feel discomfortable with my study so I choose ten important and useful questions which are useful to my study.

DRAWBACKS GIVEN BY THE MAJORITY USER’S:

USER1: Text is small and I generally scan information at fast pace. So I cannot catch text soon. Also white space could be reduced in order to fill up that space with more results

USER2: Yes, i hope searching for a car with filtering the results but i get more unnecessary stuff than required for example if search for cars in the range of 3500$ i also get search results of 4000$ or more too. Which indeed is not required

USER3: It only gives limited search for selected amount

USER4: 1) The navigation supporter is not proper.

2) In between, I felt like I am nowhere in the website.

3) Too many objects in main page.

USER 5: it's hard to navigate because the site is confusing with other searches and text is very small to see.

User6: This site is so clumsy some times. It’s hard to find what we want at an instance.

The user’s drawbacks are mostly related to visibility issues of the site and irrelevant information shown by the site when we searched for a particular product.

Site visit:

At the starting stage of my study I approached the user’s through their personal emails and also sent a group mail from Frostburg state university email system to my fellow 68 classmates who are enrolled in web development 2 course and also sent my google form to 20 of my friends in Facebook and social networking out of them only 17 people participated in my study moreover, I asked them to record a web cam video while accessing the site so that I can get more visible information where user is feeling confused, frustrated and where user is facing difficulties with navigation.

No one recorded a video so I decided to conduct a field study so that more inferences can be gathered for my study, and also after reading Hackos and reddish lessons I felt it’s so important to conduct a site visit

Planning for a site visit:

As it is summer break many of friends went to their relatives and friend’s places so that I can find few people leaving with me in Frostburg to participate in my study. So I sent them emails and contacted them through phone and explained about my usability study and requested them to participate in a field study, as they are busy with their course works and some people are having campus jobs so that I only gathered THREE participants who are willing to participate in my study.

I asked them to meet me at my flat on 7/15/2016, But due to their busy schedules they informed me about their free time so that I went to their places and conducted my field study.

Objectives of my site visit:

To observe the user and get necessary information from them regarding the website

TO observe where the user is getting confused or frustrated

To record or note user’s problems and suggestions with the site

TO get some useful feedback and suggestions regarding the site so that I can design a good model of prototype

Participants:

The Three participants I selected for my study are computer science students who are studying along with me, and two of them already used Craig’s list for buying their cars and one of them till date he didn’t used this site. More over one guy who was selected for my study is facing an eye problem so that I can get more relevant feedback from him regarding sites visibility issues.

Data collection methods:

I asked them to discuss if any problems exist while performing my study or else I asked them “to say out loud” as discussed in hackos and reddish book

I maintained a book to note their problems, suggestions and feedbacks. I noted my observations on the individual participants and also noted their problems. Firstly, I wanted to record a video while they are performing the study but no one agreed so I proceeded like this.

During my interview process I opened my questions in MS word document in my system and asked them to follow my instructions stated in that form and answer to that questions and asked them to contact me if they had any doubts while performing the task. The questions were same as in google forms.

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Analysis of the data collected:

I analyzed the information I collected from the google forms and from the site visit by dividing in to the following categories.

1.what are my observations

2. what are user’s observations

3. problems faced by the user while accessing the site

4. feedback by the user’s

5. suggestions by the user’s

And here is my analysis on Percentage of user’s participated in my study through online and their responses

OBSERVATION OF THE ONLINE PARTICIPANTS:

Percentage of user’s who used craigs list before my survey

what did you bought or sold in craigs list

From this info it’s clear that majority of my user’s searched for car or an auto mobile so that makes easy for them to perform my task

Difficulty with navigation:

This shows that only few people said that it’s easy to navigate and many of the participants felt difficulty and moderate while navigating.This statistics shows the navigating problems of this site is high due its cluttered and clumsy pages.

Problems faced by the user’s :

This problems stated by the users are majorly due to small text which causes poor site visibility and due to irrelevant posts, A user stated that after some time he felt that he is

nowhere of the website this is because due to irrelevant information shown by the website and someone stated that there is a need for filters for this site.

Participants with visibility issues:

The participants are asked a question do you have any eye problems this was asked because to test sites visibility, none of my online participants don’t have any eye problems so I concentrated more on this issue during my site visit so that I can observe the participants with eye problems closely.

Rating buy the user:

I asked the user’s about how much they rate for the website so that I can get their overall user experience with the website which is useful for me while building prototype

Suggestions by the participants:

Maximum of the suggestions are related to text and navigation, Then I planned to include this suggestions while developing prototypes.

SITE VISIT ANALYSIS:

The site visit is conducted on 3 users’ as discussed during evenings at different day’s and different weather conditions, I never felt outside environment will effect user’s experience but after my site visit I understood the importance of knowing the user’s environment while designing a website as discussed in hackos and reddish lessons. Before going to site visit I referred to Norman and hackos and reddish lessons to get more benefit from the site visit

The observations of the site visit are as follows:

Participant1:

Time: evening

Location: My flat

Weather outside: sunny and humidity is more that day

The observations I got from this user is we should consider about user’s environment while performing a site visit this is because due to westher outside it’s swety and irritating for him while performing my study and for sure his problem falls on the usage of site in addition the site clutteredness and clumsiness made him frustrate he didn’t express his frustration outside but I observed his face feelings.

Participant2:

Time :evening

Location:ccit

System used:Apple computers

The observation I got from this user are he is comfortable with his environment and the system he used is having large display so that he may not feel that must visibility problems and feedback given by him is same as online participants

Participant3:

Time :afternoon

Location:My flat

Weather:cloudy

Light inside the room: low

Participant problem: he is facing some eye disease due to spondilities which he got recently

From this participant I observed a lot of issues regarding visibility issues of the site due to the clutteredness and clumsy ness of the site this participant fely many difficulties while

performing my tasks ,then I understood the importance of making the websites accessible for people who are having eye problems

Then I started using this information and developed some prototypes of the site which makes user-friendly and accessible for all kinds of people, though I don’t have enough time or otherwise I would ask for feedback to my prototypes and will develop a sample website.

HERE ARE MY PROTOTYPES WHICH I DEVELOPED USING ALL THE INFORMATION I GOT FROM THIS STUDY.

Sample prototypes:

Original site home page

My prototype:

Original site:

My prototype:

This makes the user feel comfortable while viewing the site and not get frustrated or confused while navigating

Original site:

My Prototypes:

This help user to find out their product according to department and there is afilter option to filter their searches.

And in next page after searching for car:

Showing only Related searches using filter’s option to make user comfortable and reduces chance of frustration of the user.

This prototypes are having white background and font used for the text is having high bandwidth colors such as blue, red and black to make the content visible for the user and moreover pictures I used is having good clarity so that the user’s with eye problems can differentiate between products, However the users who post their used or new cars for sale

don’t think about all the visible factors so that craigslist must have an option of only upload clarity pictures of the product so that it can attract more number of user’s.

Thus these are my observations and information I gathered from my study it benefits me a lot in future while developing a classified advertising website.

References:

User and Task Analysis for interface Design by JoAnn T. Hackos and Janice C. Reddish

The design of everyday things by Donald A Norman

http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/craigslist-statistics/2/

Tutorial how-to conduct usability testing at https://www.drupal.org/node/1319120