| Heuristic Evaluation of Road Sage |
| Heuristic Name |
Severity |
# Evaluators Found |
Description |
| H1: Simple & Natural Dialog |
0 |
1 |
Navigation links at the top of the page are difficult to see because of the colors. |
| H1: Simple & Natural Dialog |
2 |
1 |
On Plan New Trip screen, selection of "departing at" or "arriving at" could be better connected to the time selection box. You see departing/arriving and then you have to scroll down to get to the time, so you don't see the connection immediately. |
| H1: Simple & Natural Dialog |
1 |
1 |
Traffic Forecast page says:
"This map shows expected traffic for trip you specified on Monday, arriving at 9 am."
However, users need more information if going sometime further in the future (next week, next month) It would be helpful to put in the specific date, like Monday, April 8, 2004. |
| H1: Simple & Natural Dialog |
3 |
1 |
On the Traffic Forecast page, should say "the trip you want to take on," otherwise users may think this is the time they registered the trip. |
| H1: Simple & Natural Dialog |
2 |
1 |
Instead of showing the dialog box for new users under the login dialog box, have a link that goes to another page where they can sign up. Users might be confused by seeing multiple logins on the page. Colors are too similar to see much difference. |
| H1: Simple & Natural Dialog |
1 |
1 |
Make the title of the page, like "Traffic Right Now for My Trip," larger and centered, or more prominent, so that the user can clearly see which page he is on. |
| H1: Simple & Natural Dialog |
2 |
2 |
Make "Done" link on the My Profile page into a button instead. It is not very noticeable that the user can click on Done and be taken to the user's home page.
Unclear what will happen in My Profile page. Does each link go to a new page or open a new link? Unclear where the "Done" link will take the user. |
| H2: Speak the User's Language |
4 |
1 |
On the Traffic Right Now screen and the Traffic Forecast screen, the route description seems limited by freeway. Users may have routes that are entirely on city streets. |
| H2: Speak the User's Language |
1 |
1 |
Phrases used in "Plan New Trip" page are inconsistent from top and bottom. Change from fragmented phrases to single words. The ellipsis " …" and exclamation marks and references using "this" can be confusing. |
| H2: Speak the User's Language |
1 |
1 |
Change wording of "Adjust Trip" to "Change trip". |
| H3: Minimize the User's Memory Load |
3 |
1 |
The listing of saved trips should give more info. Multiple trips may begin and end within the same city and would therefore be undistinguishable. |
| H3: Minimize the User's Memory Load |
3 |
1 |
Login screen has no "Forgot Password?" help link. |
| H4: Consistency |
3 |
2 |
On the Sign in/Register screen, My Profile does not appear in the top navigation, but appears in the top navigation for all other screens. |
| H5: Feedback |
3 |
1 |
Clicking on the Live Traffic Map does not do anything even though it is a link. However, clicking on the Traffic Forecast Map brings you back to the Current Traffic Page. It is unclear what clicking on the map is supposed to do – refresh the map with the latest data or open the map up in a larger viewing window. |
| H6: Clearly Marked Exits |
3 |
1 |
No way to go back to a previous screen without using browser's back button. |
| H7: Shortcuts |
2 |
2 |
Should have frequently used addresses saved with profile (home, work, etc.). For the Plan New Trip page, have the user's "From" address already populated in those fields to avoid retyping. |
| H7: Shortcuts |
2 |
1 |
Users should be able to refresh the maps and get the latest traffic data without having to re-enter all the travel information again.
|
| H10: Help and Documentation |
3 |
2 |
The Help documentation is difficult to sift through, and is a lot of information to look at in a glance. The information should be listed in some order (grouped by page) and possibly listed numerically in steps. In addition some sort of search or faqs would be helpful. |
| H10: Help and Documentation |
3 |
1 |
A help link near each part of the Plan New Trip interface would be useful. |
| Overall Recommendations |
Overall, we liked the site and thought it was a good start. Some of the features we liked were the ability to save past searches, see the highlighted map of our trip, and having the alternate routes. However, as with any first interactive prototype, we found some usability problems.
The heuristic that was violated the most often was H1, simple
and natural dialog, though with minor severity ratings (mainly
ranging from 0 to 2). Many of the usability issues for this
heuristic involve changing the wording and providing more
specific information to the user. On the other hand, the
most frequent severity rating was
for level
3, indicating
nontrivial usability problems. Some of the heuristics with
severity 3 include minimizing the user's memory load, consistency,
feedback, providing exits, and help. In most cases, the fixes
for these problems are rather straightforward or are suggested
in our heuristic evaluation.
Most importantly, we had some questions about the application's scope. Namely, the coverage of the application is unclear on two levels. On the roadmap level, if the user's route does not involve taking freeways, would Road Sage still be able to provide current/forecasted traffic information? The name "Road Sage" implies traffic on all roads, yet the current application only shows traffic information for freeways. On the regional coverage level, since nationwide traffic data might not be available, it is unclear as to whether Road Sage provides traffic conditions for the Bay Area alone, or nationwide as well. |
