I. Heuristic Evaluation

Our first steps were to conduct a heuristic evaluation and a competitive analysis so that we could figure out what to focus on for our user testing. One area that I focused on within the heuristic evaluation was the User Control and Freedom heuristic:

Here is one example of a usability problem I found in this area: when searching for a route using the Trip Planner tab, the initial results screen is cluttered with unnecessary information, while it is difficult to find something more relevant such as the trip map. My recommendation was then to collapse all the small text on the initial results screen and to display the map on the first “Trip Details” screen.

II. Competitive Analysis

We evaluated six competitors for our competitive analysis. For this, I focused on the DoorDash app, an indirect competitor to CapMetro as a food delivery app. Here is one recommendation I made for CapMetro based on the DoorDash app:

III. User Testing

We began our user testing process with a screener to find participants with a mix of experiences with both the CapMetro transit system in general and the CapMetro mobile app specifically.

We then conducted moderated user tests with the five participants we found. We began each session with a short interview to collect even more details about their experience with CapMetro, and then we had the users complete five tasks within the app that we had outlined ahead of time, utilizing a think-aloud process.

Once we had completed all testing sessions, we sat down and produced summaries of our findings for each task. Here is an example that I worked on:

Task 4: Finding a route to a specific location

Goal: Users will locate the HEB Hancock location, and then identify a specific bus route that they can take to that location.

Results:

Insights:

• Most users were able to completely the task successfully but only after making a few errors, which suggests that the app does not provide the user with a clear pathway to complete this task.
• Many initially gravitated to the “Next Departure” tab, but this was the incorrect destination for this task.

Recommendations:

• Consider consolidating Next Departure and Trip Planner, or make their functions distinct enough to differentiate quickly.
• Make it more obvious that you can search for specific destinations as opposed to only bus stops.

IV. Final Report

We consolidated our findings from each of the previous steps into a final report of all insights and recommendations. A summary of our findings:

See the full final report here!