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 isnt 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 didnt 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. Oscars
best picture nominations are an elite eight, and thats 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 22 nd
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 couldnt 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 wouldnt
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: Davids 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.
Davids 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 Garbs 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 Ryans 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: Ryans 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. Ryans
favorite browser is Safari. Ryan did not use any browser add ons.

Test Results
Initial Site Thoughts:
David Edwards Report: Davids first comment of the home page
of Kansascity.com was: wow this is much better than nytimes.com, which is
Davids 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: Ryans 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 didnt 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 Im 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 dont 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 cant believe that there
isnt 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 wasnt 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 Davids, 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 couldnt 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 didnt 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 didnt 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 dont 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 didnt
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 Im 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 Im 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 dont 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 didnt 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, Im 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 didnt 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 Ryans 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,
Im 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 Im going fast, because I know what Im 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 Davids.
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 cant 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 doesnt 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.

Ryans question was Do I have to use the kansascity.com site? If I do
then I dont 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 dont think I can do it man, Ive 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