Review submitted August 18, 2003
1. Follow established web conventions and design guidelines throughout all pages within all products (e.g., link colors)
2. Same design for common functions (e.g., sign in, flight searches or other provider searches, presentation of search results, selection of results, and confirmations). There should not be a different way to do the same thing for each individual site.
3. Common Sabre branding as spelled out in a style guide (e.g., logos, color usage, watermarks and backgrounds, and fonts)
4. Common page layout and overall UI design as spelled out in a UI design style guide for all products (e.g., global functions, primary and secondary navigation, location of controls and other design elements, graphics and links)
Although the Evoya Home page looks and feels like a travel agency web portal, the Evoya portal branding (indicated by what appears to be a light gray watermark below the site’s main navigation bar) is muted by the main Sabre branding (Sabre Travel Network) and the advertisement of other branded Sabre products such as Sabre Virtually There. Consider giving Evoya branding its due emphasis within the Sabre product suite, and making the other brand items tertiary in nature. An example of this point is to consider moving the Sabre Travel Network company link to the bottom of the page or to the far right-hand column of related links just above the Sabre Virtually There link.
There are two links with different names that go to the Sabre System, Sabre System and Booking Tools. Although it appears to be an attempt at flexibility of choice and navigation, the by-product of this redundancy is unnecessary screen clutter in an already crowded page and potential confusion for the user. Use one meaningful and consistent terminology to navigate to the standard command line Sabre interface. [This evaluator assumes that he cannot load the Sabre System since he does not have a terminal address required to access the system.]
The Sabre System link is visually distinct from all the other links in the Booking Tools section and on the rest of the page. Granted that this is probably the most utilized and important of all content on the Evoya Home page, consider giving this link it’s own section above all others, and making Booking Tools a secondary travel booking section called “Additional Booking Tools” or some such title indicating that they are not a part of emulation for the Sabre Host System.
Booking Tools is not the name of the application that opens and likewise implies that there is more than one tool once opened. In this case, consider removing the redundancy of Booking Tools and keep the link for the name of the application being launched, Sabre System. More specifically, there are two Booking Tools links on the page in addition to the Sabre System link. All appear to go directly to the Sabre System emulator.
Welcome Evoya! on the Evoya Home page is unnecessary and takes up prominent real estate. Consider dropping this archaic salutation and utilize this space for something more useful. If the number of PNRs for the user is an important piece of information that should be communicated to the user, then make this the point of this message rather than a welcome to the user that just signed in.
The number of PNRs quoted under the welcome message is unclear. Is this the total number of PNRs for the user, the active ones, the ones currently open, or the number created in the current session? If feedback on PNRs is important information, consider making this information known in a more accurate and descriptive way.
Rollover effects behave inconsistently within the left-hand navigation sections. Some rollovers provide link descriptions while others do not. Rollover on some links wrap to an additional line due the enlargement of the text on the rollover effect. This causes the whole page below the specific link to shift down and can be quite distracting. Consider making rollovers behave in a consistent manner and implementing graphical highlighting that does not change the amount of real estate used for the link and thereby adjusting the entire page below the effect.
It is understandable that Agency eServices and associated links are password protected for the purpose of controlling the access. However, if the ID and password is the same for Evoya, then consider automatically authenticating the Evoya user into the Agency eServices site. If authentication cannot be made, then prompt the user for ID and password at that time. Note: Agent 59 does the authentication automatically.
Related to the required sign-in for Agency eServices content, the section does not provide any information to indicate that this entire section takes the user to a site outside of Evoya. In other words, there is no graphical or lexical indication that the user will be directed to an outside site requiring authentication. Consider utilizing some sort of feedback that all the Agency eServices content is outside of Evoya and requires an ID and password.
It appears that the list of links for Agency eServices is more detailed than the actual home page information architecture of the Agency eServices. In other words, the links appear to go to very specific pages lying deeper within the site than the high-level categories of the Agency eServices site.
The only indication that the sectional banners in the left-hand column navigation column are links is the default link behavior of the cursor on rollover. The problem is that the visual design for the Travel Resources section is nearly identically even though it is not a link in this instance. Furthermore, even though the sub-sections under Travel Resources are not links, it is reasonable to mistakenly assume that they are. Consider implementing a consistent graphical link convention to differentiate links from non-linking headings.
The location and usage of the graphical link for Sabre Virtually There is confusing. This logo link appears to give it undue importance with Evoya, potentially confuses the user if it is merely an advertisement or as an inert logo that happens to be linked to the content. Perhaps this is just the organization of access to this content, however if it is, it seems out of place and appears to belong to one of the other groups of information. It seems to be a misplaced booking tool, eService or travel resource.
The links for View Trip Plans, which is a part of the graphic for Sabre Virtually There, and the Travel Advisories and Information (English only) cannot be differentiated visually without specifically deciphering the link location shown in the browsers Status Bar. Consider providing more white space between these links.
The link for Travel Advisories and Information (English only) seems out of place where it is located. There appears to be no justifiable rationale for the location outside of the Travel Advisories sub-section. Consider relocating this link to the Travel Advisory sub-section of related content.
The set of links in the right-hand column under What’s New? run together with each other; there no visual separation from wrapping links with the link above or below it. Consider separating links with additional white space (more desirable) or with link separators (less desirable).
The design of What’s New? implies that all of the links below this large red one are a part of a section called What’s New? Upon further investigation, it appears that this link is not a section title but rather some how a more important link containing one example of what is new on the site. Consider redesigning to eliminate this potential source of confusion. Consider including a What’s New? section rather than just one example buried within the title of What’s New?.
All of the links below What’s New? go to demonstrations or tutorials that are launched in a new browser instance and appear to have nothing to do with What’s New?. [There appears to be an additional error for this What’s New? link in that it opens content for Carry-On Cuisine rather than content that describes what is new to the Evoya site. Is this the only new content? The evaluator expected to see a list of new content items.] Consider grouping this section of links below the What’s New? link into a section called something like “Tutorials” or “Demonstrations” rather than within such close approximation to the What’s New? link.
The advertisement for Carry-On Cuisine and the What’s New? link go to the same content. If there’s a self-promoting add for content then redundantly including it in a hidden way under the What’s New? link is not necessary.
There appears to be no feedback for visited links within the Evoya Home page. This is a basic web design convention that appears to be absent from the site. Consider redesigning to accommodate the basic communication visited links provide to the user.
Using the browser back button to navigate back to the Evoya Home page is a constant and irritating issue. The user must use the list of pages in the drop-down list on the Back button in order to return back to pages from whence they came. This is a laborious method of navigation that should be simple to any user. The reviewer suspects that it is due to the usage of frames or other technology that is disrupting simple navigation back to a page by reloading the current page. Consider redeveloping the site to support simple navigation that all users expect from web sites.
There is inconsistent usage of terminology for sign-in and log-out. On the Sign-in page the title is called “sign-in” however the instruction reads “…please log-in”. Likewise, the link for opposite of sign-in is called “Log-out” instead of “sign-out”. Although this inconsistency will not like cause great problems, consider establishing consistent usage of the terms for getting into and out of the system so that users never even notice or have to think about any potential distinctions.
The control for selecting the language of choice for the site seems fairly straightforward; however there is no description or label for the control. Consider labeling the control with something like “Choose your language” or “Change language”. The latter is more advisable since it is not likely to be changed often. However upon quick referral to the Options page, there is a no user customizable setting for language preference. Consider making this an option so that the user can easily change it from any default setting and so that it will only need to be done once for the user (assuming that each user signs-in with their personal work account).
Activities, Sightseeing, Adventure, Theater and Events, Attractions, Dining, Ground Transportation, and Vacation Rentals, Small Hotels, and Inns all go to the same page without
Selecting the Dining link under Booking Tools loads a page entitled “at the destination” rather than something related to the name of the link selected. Consider using appropriately named links and page titles that match each other or at least a sub-section of the page if the link takes the user to a section within a more comprehensive content page. Alternatively, navigate the user directly to a section within at the destination for dining rather than making the user select additional controls to find the area they may have expected to go to directly from the Home page.
There is a non-standard or inappropriate usage of controls within the at the destination page. The roll-over effect of the horizontal menu bar across the page includes up and down arrows for scrolling the list of items. This is not only awkward to operate, but it is also completely unnecessary when the browser size permits ample real estate to present the entire list of items. There is an additional issue with the usage of this control because it hides items in the list from view. It may take repeated usage, failures, and frustration for the user to discover the hidden items in the list.
The control for going to items within the Travel Suppliers is inconsistent with the rest of the site for navigating to specific content areas. Consider providing a link for each of the items listed in the drop-down control, especially since there are so few. This makes the items more available to the user and saves a couple of interaction steps to go to the information.
Errors messages are a bit extreme as shown in such large font with the bright red “500” in the background. Consider creating meaningful and direct error messages without codes and displayed in a more tactful manner. As implemented, the message shouts not only to the user but to anyone else within view of the office even if they are dozens of yards away.
The FAQ page accessed from the link under the Web Fares sub-section is not formatted for optimal presentation of information. The information can be much better presented outside of the rows and columns matrix format by grouping them under a simple title header for each topic area, followed by a question in bold font that is preceded with the label “Question:”, and then followed by the answer in regular font on a new line immediately below the question. There is not need for the distracting bullet points next to each question. Likewise, center-justifying the question and then left-justifying the answer is inconsistent and distracting.
There are broken links within the Country Tourism page.
Also within the Country Tourism page, all but two links are denoted with “(English)” after them. It makes it extremely difficult to find the links that go to content in other languages. Consider only denoting content when the link takes the user to a language other than the language selected within Evoya; in this case Evoya is set to English, so only show the German and Italian exceptions.
1. Your client, Bob Smith wants to book a travel package (air + hotel) to Cancun for himself and his wife Jane. They would like to depart Houston on Sept 9th, 2003 and would like to return on Sept 14th. Access the area in eVoya where you would book this travel package.
Sabre System, Air Treks, Agent 59 Last Minute Deals, and Today’s Low Fares all seem like places that would accomplish booking travel for two plus hotel from Houston to Cancun.
2. While in Cancun the Smiths would like to see the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. Access the area in eVoya where you would book a one-day excursion for the Smiths to Chichen Itza.
For the Smiths to visit Chichen Itza it would appear that the user would select the Activities, Sightseeing, Adventure link. If that did not accomplish the task, then the links for Attractions or one of the ones in the Destinations section seem like plausible places to look as well. There is no real indication where exactly the user would go to “book” this type of information so succeeding on this task may take some trial and error to figure it out until learned. Travel Suppliers may also be a possible area to do this task.
3. Mr. Smith wants to know the current exchange rate for the US dollar to the Peso. Find the rate in eVoya.
Finding currency conversion from USD to Mexican Peso seems to present no problems.
4. Access the area where you could track the lowest airfares between San Francisco and Honolulu, Hawaii on an ongoing basis. Set eVoya to track it.
To track low fares on a daily basis between two cities appears to be in the Today’s Low Fares section. Setting the tracking is easy unless the user does not know the airport codes for the desired cities. Consider an automatic code look-up for entries, or at least a link to manually find the code translation.
5. You have a client, Mr. Cole, who would like to entertain a client in Vancouver by taking him out to dinner at a restaurant specializing in French cuisine. Make a restaurant reservation for Mr. Cole.
Completing the task of booking a restaurant reservation in Vancouver is unnecessarily cumbersome. There is not need to go through so many pages to get to the information when a simple search interface could accomplish this in a few primary search attribute fields. Consider providing a search interface where the user can specify the location, type of restaurant, and other details such as price range, rating, or additional costs associated.
6. Mr. Cole would like to stay in a first-class hotel in downtown Vancouver. Book the room.
Booking a hotel seems to be a primary task that is missing from the Booking Tools section. There is an option for Hotels/Lodging listed in the Travel Suppliers sub-section; however, that content appears to apply only for hostels and B&Bs, not hotels in the downtown of a major world city. Consider placing a clearly labeled link to Hotel Booking within the Booking Tools section of the Evoya Home page. The evaluator failed to find the proper place to do this task abandoned after a reasonable timeframe.
7. You are the manager of a travel agency and you would like to review last month's booking reports for your agency. Access the area in eVoya where you could view booking reports.
It appears that the user would simply select the Agency Booking Reports – Statistical Data link to find booking reports for management. On the other hand, the scenario description uses the exact terminology so this may be too leading of a task if the agency uses terminology that is different from this. Additionally, a plausible guess may be to select the Revenue Management Tools (English Only) link to accomplish this task.
8. Assuming you are the manager of a travel agency and one of your Sabre terminals will not connect to the network. Access the area in eVoya where you could find technical support info for your Sabre hardware.
It appears that the user would find information on problems in terminal connectivity at the Hardware/Tech Support link. Of course it may depend upon the exact context of the problem, i.e., if the problem occurs during installation of a terminal.
9. Where would you log-out of the system?
Finding the link to perform the function of logging-out of Evoya seems straightforward, however, please note the aforementioned feedback on inconsistency of terminology for getting into and out of Evoya.
The multiple types of Home pages (Europe, Latin America, North America, and South Pacific) are confusing. This can be handled via user customization rather than as four options on the roll-over effect of the Home navigation link. The default page would then be set to one of the four possible Home pages. It is highly unlikely that a user would switch between the four options. There is also no readily apparent visual distinction on any of the four types of Home pages, with the exception of the label below the Agency eServices title at the top of the page. Consider a slight variation in branding for each of the different geographical areas of usage. Give the user a sense of identification with that geographical distinction.
The assumption appears to be that all users for the North American and South Pacific versions of Agency eServices are English speakers. There is no way to select another language in either of these versions. This is a false assumption especially for North American users where there are numerous Spanish speaking agencies who will be forced to use an English-only version, likewise French-Canadian agencies in Quebec. There are numerous areas of the South Pacific where French is spoken, and for other English-speaking users outside of North America it would be much more appropriate to provide Queen's English to these users especially in Europe and in the South Pacific. Furthermore, there is no Spanish or Portuguese choices within the European versions. Consider providing additional language versions for North America and South Pacific users specifically, and localize to other areas when Queen's English is more familiar than North American English. Consider providing a customization area where users can set preferences for such things as geographical location and language preference.
1. There's a marketing tool you can use to communicate and promote your business to your clients using pre-prepared text emails. You'd like to promote a "Last Minute Special" to your clients. Find the tool and send an email to yourself.
The information architecture is too deep to make the access to a specific content page quick, easy, and intuitive. By the time that the Last Minute Deals page was found, the user is six layers of content deep from the Home page. There were no less than two additional pathways (short-cuts?) found to the Last Minute Deals page that made it accessible from three steps and two steps from the Home page via the E-mail Library subcategory under Business Tools and the E-mail Library link on the Home page. The reason that there are three ways to find the content is an enigma for this evaluator and seems to add to the overall complexity of the site [actually it appears that there are also pathways from What's New? and the Site Index, too - five in all!]. Consider redesigning content to be readily accessible in a minimum of three steps from the Home page, and eliminate the redundant pathways.
Related to the depth of the content is the inconsistent usage of navigation and content identification of the current and higher level categories. Navigation inconsistencies exist where some content is accessed via
The identification of the current page and the content hierarchy varies across the following inconsistent methods:
Consider implementing a clear and consistent means of navigation and identification of the current and previous super-ordinate layers of content. A possible solution is to complement a clear navigational hierarchy and page identification with the usage of a breadcrumb trail. Breadcrumb trails can assist in the identification of the current page, the pathway taken to the current page and the pathway back to a prior step, and the hierarchy of the content.
Another barrier to task completion was the organization of content. It seemed that Last Minute Deals would more likely reside under Special Offers than under Travel Agency Advantage. Consider conducting user research to establish the best content organization and nomenclature.
There is no way to quickly scan the contents of the sub-category for Travel Agency Advantage. Consider listing all the e-mail topics under this sub-category at the top of the content and making these anchor links to the specific section of the page (after all, there are graphics to return the user to the top of the page, but no short-cuts to the sections from the top). Doing this will allow the user to more easily find the topics without scrolling on each page under each sub-category for in the E-mail Library, and the anchor links will provide an easy way for the user to go directly to that point on the page.
There is little affordance of what to do once the Last Minute Deals content was found other than to click the link for the title of the section. The instruction all the way at the top of the page and written in italics says to "click on the e-mail title below". Consider placing a terse instruction in each section in place of the "Last Minute Deal" link next to the Title label. In fact, the instruct could be a link or graphical button. Examples may include:
Once the function for Last Minute Deals was found and selected, spawning only one window for the email settings and the text of the message would be necessary, more desirable, easier to complete and review the message to be sent. There seems to be no reason why the two windows could not be combined into one.
The inability to customize the text of the message will likely lead to the under utilization of this function. Consider letting the user customize any part of the message that is not fare specific in order to suit his/her writing style and the information contained in the message. Let the default message serve as a guide rather than as a required message.
Modifying the information in the Your Agency Specific Toll Free # field is required, but the field is not denoted as such. Consider accurately indicating all requirements for the function.
While a message appeared to be sent according the red-lettered phrase at the top of the window for setting the email parameters, there was no additional information regarding closing the windows or continuing to send more messages from the same window. Furthermore, the field for the Recipient's e-mail Address seemed a bit small for multiple entries (Note: capitalize the "e" in "e-mail" for all the fields). Consider including a function to close the windows other than the default operating system control, and make the recipient field wider. Layout improvements can be made to eliminated the multi-celled matrix approach, the overuse of colors, the inefficient use of center-aligned labels and fields, and the inappropriate size constraints on fields that should be larger. [There seems to be no reason for the "E" in "e-mail" to be lower case in the label called "Recipient's e-mail Address".]
Other items found while completing Task 1
The roll-over effect for Business Tools shows an option for "e-famtrips", however the Business Tools page shows a link for "efamtrips" spelled without the hyphen (likewise in the paragraph describing the content). Consider implementing consistent nomenclature and fixing typographical errors.
The link for Fare Management Tools within the Business Tools category uses an abbreviation, "Mgmt". There appears to no real estate issue for not abbreviating the word, even so, wrapping the link to the next line is much more advisable. Consider avoiding the use of abbreviations especially for identification of critical items such as link names. It is not recommended to assume that all users understand abbreviations, and furthermore requiring the user to decode the abbreviation is unnecessary in the current example. Other abbreviations noticed within roll-over lists were "Svcs", "Bus.", "Tech", "SW" and "HW" (the last one was spelled out in another list).
Consider turning the headings into hypertext links for the various sections on the Marketing Tools, Sabre Products & Features, Hardware Solutions, and other pages throughout the site. There is no reason why the user cannot select these directly.
Consider using the simple to understand text of "top of page" for performing that function instead of using the "up arrow" graphic.
2. You need to add a new Sabre CRT at your agency. Locate the online order form and complete the form to add a CRT for your business.
The task was not completely successfully due to the inability to find the online order form. The evaluator looked under the areas that seemed most relevant to the task, including:
This seems like an important task and would likely result in a call to Sabre to completer as opposed to an economical online ordering form.
3. Display a booking report by PCC for your business and display the report on screen.
Although this area seemed that it would most likely be found under Business Tools or Product, the booking report area was eventually found by selecting each of the items in the Manager category. However, the task was not completed because of the following message on the page:
"Our records indicate you are not currently authorized to access this page. This feature may be accessed only by anyone with rights established through the Agency eServices Secured Services feature as determined by your agency’s Site Administrator."
4. Locate the document and policy for Sabre Debit Memo information and display this on the screen.
After scanning across the roll-over menus for an item previously noted while completing another task, the Documentation menu item was found under the Support menu. Although the item was eventually found, it was not obvious where it would be located. The next step was a successful guess that was also based on the terminology used for the task description (i.e., "Located the document and policy..."). If the evaluator had only been instructed to find information on the Sabre Debit Memo, he would have had much greater difficulty finding the actually information and would not have found Policies & Procedures to be the sub-category that contained the Sabre Debit Memo content. Consider changing the menu item for "Documentation" to "Documentation & References".
Consider removing all the bullet points next to the unlabeled list of contents on the Sabre Policies and Procedures page, they add no value. Additionally, label the group of Policies and Procedures and make each one an anchor link to the appropriate spot on the page for that topic.
Again, there is the same issue of missing labels and navigation for the middle layer of content information architecture. Consider implementing the aforementioned content labels and navigation guides by replacing the Note that includes a "click here" link with Documentation sub-category navigation.
There is no indication that Adobe Acrobat Reader is required for showing the documentation on the page. Likewise, there is no description on what to do if the documentation does not load, nor is there a short-cut to the Adobe web site or instructions on what to do to get it. Consider placing text on the page that explains the Adobe Acrobat requirement, adding a link to the Adobe Acrobat download site, and adding "(PDF)" after each document that requires Acrobat if there are a mixture of file types on the page.
Other details encountered in performing the tasks
The Site Index page supports anchor links for quick access to an alphabetized section, however there is no quick access to another section from within each section or back to the top of the page. Consider providing at least one of the following methods of navigation within the Site Index.
- anchor links to the various sections from within each section;
- anchor links in a frame that is always present on the page; or
- in the very least provide a "back to the top" link after each section to facilitate quick navigation to another section.
The roll-over effect for the Manager navigation link is truncated when the edge of the browser is located immediately to the right of the Manager and Log Off links.
1. Find and work through the process of booking a package (air + hotel) to/from DFW to NYC for the next weekend.
Finding information on this task by providing the desired locations was straightforward using the Search by Destination interface. Once the user leaves the Home page to complete a task, it seems that the interface design is backwards because the user works from the right side of the page to the left rather than the left to right as in Western cultures.
There is plenty of room to put labels (e.g., Destination State or Region, and Destination City) on the controls for Destination rather than as the default value in the list for both controls.
Providing the information out of order is a bit annoying due to the reloading of values in drop-down lists after selection of a value in a drop-down list above it. This fact requires the user to reselect the lower drop-down control each time a change is made in a preceding control. Obviously this is necessary for the list of cities because the values do change, however, this doesn't seem to be the case for the Destination State or Region so the re-selection slows down the user and may cause frustration. Consider allowing the user to complete the Departure or the Destination in either order if the values are the same for the first two drop-down lists.
Similarly, the controls for the Search Options seem to be misnamed and out of place below the actually controls for the type of search selected. The links below the search fields seem to be more of a type of search to perform as opposed to options by which to search. Choosing a type of search to perform seems to be a higher level task than the search controls for the type of search. Consider renaming the controls for the Search Options to something more accurate like "Type of Search" or "Search Type" , changing the controls from a set of links to a list of radio buttons for selecting the type of search to perform, and then placing the controls above the drop-down lists.
Completing the task becomes much more laborious when searching for packages via dates than it is by city pair because the results are for all destination locations. Consider supporting users with a mental model for date of the package as a priority above the destination location. This can be accomplished by including a filter by destination for the results of the date search.
Completing the task via keyword worked most efficiently when using the keywords "dallas to new york city", however all packages in the state of New York were included in the results which did not quite match the keywords provide (even with Boolean parameters included in the keyword field). Consider refining the search results algorithm to match the search parameters and to allow for Boolean parameters.
The list of hotels, hotel options and additional charges is quite overwhelming. Consider providing a filter mechanism to reduce the extensive results down to something more manageable.
The airline flight results were not immediately intuitive with the additional tabs of flights on the page and how those sets of flights related to the default list of flights already in view. The Agency 59 logo on the All Flights tab makes it look too similar to the individual airline labels and logos. Consider making the label for the complete set of unfiltered flights more obvious and remove the Agency 59 logo which is not an airline at all.
Entering the billing and customer information should be streamlined extensively to reduce the time on task. Consider automatically populating some of the agency contact fields based on the authentication at sign-in. The user can always confirm this information. Additionally, agency store a great deal of customer data in travel system databases. Consider providing the means to import this information into Agency 59 or at least to browse their files for the purpose of cutting and pasting into the web form.
There is a typographical error on the billing page. "The credit card above will not be charged until your confirm the order on the next page." The word "your" should be "you".
Once on the billing page there appears to be no way to cancel the booking prior to confirmation. Users may have a difficult time trusting that there is no harm in going to the billing page prior to confirmation with no dire consequences. Likewise, users may panic if they get here and do not find a way to verify that the booking is cancelled, thereby unnecessarily generating additional customer support calls. Consider adding a button called "Do not book", "Cancel reservation", or "I do not agree" minimally at the bottom of the page and optimally at the top of the page, too. Finally, the message at the end about the sale being final and that there are no cancellations permitted should be turned into a two step confirmation process to continue. Consider making the first step immediately prior to the billing page to avoid wasting time on inputting that information, and also at the end of the billing step as the way to make the agreement of terms. [The evaluator chose not to continue past this point without further knowledge that the package would not actually be sold.]
Also lacking from the overall process at each step is a function to non-adversely return to the previous step for the purpose of making modifications in the search and results selections.
2. Find a golf package for the next weekend.
Getting a large number of results for a golf package was easy via the Search by Interest interface. However, it is not possible to refine the search should the user have something more specific in mind. Again consider providing multiple parameters in a single search function rather than by independent search parameters that cannot be combined. There should be no reason why the user cannot search for Myrtle Beach, golf, a date for this weekend and even by some keyword of interest all at one time.
Once a package is selected from the list of results, there is a lack of instructions on what the next step is for booking the package. The presentation of the travel dates implies that it is the next step, but no explicit instruction is stated. Likewise, the layout of the leaving and subsequent return dates takes a while to decipher and get used to. Finally, the content displayed after the Travel Dates section does not inform the user what can be done with the marketing information or when in the process you may be able to specify a booking for the specific content item listed. Although this content may be helpful for selling the destination package to a customer, it confuses the booking process and leads to the false conclusion that it is a part of the package. Consider including instructions on the current step in the booking process to make it clear what is expected from this step in the process. Consider alternative ways to present the departure and return options and the associated cost to make these options more understandable. Consider including labels and instructions on what can be done, if anything, with the content below the Travel Dates section.
At some point in the searching and selecting of results, apparently at the point of selecting flights, the Search frame is removed from view. This didn't seem to be awkward during the booking process, however it may leave the user with a mild sense of a loss of control, especially if they wish to start a new search or revise the current one. At this point, the user must select the Search tab and start completely over.
Using the browser Back button causes undesirable behavior when the page to reloads. At the point of selecting a flight, pressing reload/refresh within the browser caused the browser to crash (the evaluator was using MS IE 6.0 on a Windows 2000 operating system). On another instance it reset the page to the initial Home page for the site even though the evaluator was not currently on that page when it was reloaded.
The same feedback applies for finishing the booking process as written for the first scenario.
3. Find the cheapest trip (air + hotel) from DFW to Chicago on the weekend of August 23rd.
Again the same feedback applies for the inability to specify multiple search parameters at the same time. The inability to do this lengths the time on task and may lead to the user missing a package and therefore a potential sale. The same feedback applies for the rest of the selection and booking process as the previous scenarios.
4. What trips are available staying in the Ritz Carlton hotel?
Initially, the evaluator tried to find packages for the Ritz Carlton via the Luxury option. This attempt at finding the information failed since the results were only sorted by destination and not anything to do with hotels even though the tab for the results read as Flight & Hotel. On second attempt, the evaluator selected the Search by Keyword method and typed "Ritz" into the Keyword field. The results displayed a package to West Palm Beach, but indicated nothing about the Ritz. Refining the search to "Ritz Carlton" yielded the same results. At this point, the evaluator took it on faith that perhaps the Ritz Carlton would be an option in the hotel selection portion of the booking. After exhausting all possibilities for West Palm Beach packages the user would have given up if he were a travel agent, and the result would have been "no sale". However, since the evaluator is not an agent and the scenario was specifically created to find the Ritz, the evaluator investigated it further on the suspicion that it was hidden somewhere. The evaluator selected the Flight and More tab only to find a package to Boston with no indication that the Ritz may be an option. Continuing with persistence down this path, the user selected the Boston package and finally found mention of the Ritz ("High Tea at the Ritz Carlton") by scrolling far down the page within the marketing material below the Travel Dates section. Again, at this point it takes prior learning to know that the Ritz may come up as an option within the booking process if the proper dates are selected when the Ritz may have availability. To repeat the main issue with this process, this scenario would have ended with no customer satisfaction and no revenue for the agent or agency.
Additionally, at one point in the evaluation, the evaluator stopped at the last safe point in the booking process, selected the Home link, followed by the Search tab because this frame was no longer displayed, and got the Info contents instead. The evaluator did not try to replicate this error.
1. Work through the process of building and setting up a site for your faux travel agency.
The left-hand side of the page with the gray background is wasted real estate on the page. Consider getting removing this space and moving the page body to the left until there is such a need to use the left-hand side for content or navigation. Do not just reserve this space because subsequent categories may use it for navigation.
The option for building a site from the Main Menu page is not readily apparent to the user. There is no terminology on a link or in a description of a link that directly indicates which option to choose for building a site. Consider differentiating the functions of starting a new site from the functions of customizing an existing site. Because of the lack of a clear starting point for building a site, the evaluator went to the Site Manager Overview section first (see comments on it below).
Providing information for the Agency Information portion of the site customization process was fairly straightforward. Some of the options in the Regional Settings section took some effort to figure out (e.g., the difference between "date" and "day" in the Long Date Format drop-down list box was not clear). Again, the three English choices are a source of confusion with trying to figure out the how "English" is different from "English UK" and "English US".
The use of a modal pop-up message after the selection of a color scheme is alarming and unnecessary. Consider placing this message in the instruction area for this step.
There is no default background color mentioned for comparison with the option to "Use a different background color". Different from what? is the question. If there is a default color, then show what it is, if not, then describe this section as a selection between two options, a custom color and your own background image.
Unless agencies employee graphic artist or web designers, then most users will not know anything about a "valid HTML hexadecimal code". Consider including a web-safe color palate from which the user can make his/her choice.
There is no consistent usage of font treatment within the content for customizing a site. Consider avoiding the use of bold font treatment for paragraphs that should be in regular text (e.g., the Agency Rate Indicators section of the Look and Feel: Icons section of the process) and for text next to GUI controls. Likewise, consider avoiding the use of a mixture of font sizes and treatments for equivalent types of text (e.g., the three different sizes and treatments for the Fare Alternatives Search Type , Enable Multiple Destinations, and Enable Consumer-Preferred Airlines checkboxes).
If the Published Fares selection is required then do not present a control for deselecting this setting. Consider just stating the fact that it is required, or at least present the control as disabled and selected. Likewise for the adult fares selection.
Use of the word "enable" in all the selection represented by a checkbox control is essentially redundant with the binary nature of the control. Consider rewording controls of this type to clearly communicate the meaning of selecting the control or deselecting the control.
The way that required fields are denoted is sometimes with the usage of the asterisk and other times with the usage of the "optional" notation. Consider one way to represent either required fields or optional fields and be consistent throughout the site.
Overall, much of the setting up process is very time intensive and laborious. There is no warning of the time commitment involved prior to the start of the process and very little feedback for where the user is in the process except for the movement down navigation list. It is not clear that the user is allowed to jump straight to a section anywhere in the navigation bar. Allowing portions of the process to be skipped, however, may have dire consequences because of unknown settings, missing information, default settings, etc.
The first attempt at previewing the site failed because the ID and Password was not known. If this information cannot be pre-filled or skipped for previewing the site then make it better known in the instructions prior to preview and do not automatically navigate off of this page while the test site is spawned in another browser instance. Consider leaving the information of this page in the original browser during the preview will allow the user to find the ID and Password information if missed or forgotten. Also, consider using a different means of communicating all the warnings other than an asterisk at the beginning of each one.
2. Publish the site.
The evaluator did preview the faux travel site, however he did not know how to sign-in to the site to test it out. Likewise, since this was just a preview of the faux site, the evaluator went through the similar process of publishing the faux site, however the same results were found as the preview and there was no indication that the faux site was actually published. Consider revising the publishing process to include clear feedback about the publication of the site.
Site Manager Overview
Upon selecting the Site Manager Overview link the real estate required for the web site in the browser increases significantly that expanding the size of the browser beyond that of the size of the Main Menu page, especially considering the wasted space on the left-hand side. Consider designing to a currently conventional resolution, or better, development the page to allow automatic resizing to fit the browser window.
The gray text on the white background does not provide enough contrast. There is no reason why the text in the page body is not black. Using a font color that does not provide good contrast with its background will cause poor readability and potential eye-strain.
There are problems with characters on the page. They appear to be mis-formatted graphics, extraneous characters, or false characters at the beginning of the text (e.g., â?¢).
There is no distinction between regular text and most of the hypertext links on the page except on mouse over. The link and visited link color scheme is unconventional with the gray text for links, the red text on roll-over and no change in color for visited links. Some headings next to the graphical bullets are links while others are not, yet there is no visual distinction except on mouse over here either. Consider using established link color schemes for the various link states of unvisited, visited and mouse over. At minimum, do not use the mouse over as the only way for the user to find links on the page; make a link look like an obvious link.
Opening a new browser instance for the text of the overview content is not necessary. Consider displaying the overview navigation to the left or right of the overview content. The user can easily choose a specific topic or to move serially down the navigation bar to read the entire overview. If the purpose of the spawned browser instance for the overview content is to let the user read the overview at same time as doing the site building, then support the full overview navigation within the new browser instance so that the user does not have to go back to the site and pick a new topic, thereby disrupting the where they are on the .Res site.
The links to the specific overview content areas do not match up with the overall outline of the content. Consider redesigning the overview navigation and content to coincide - including the aforementioned recommendations to resolve all issues.
There is no apparent difference between Site Manager Overview and Help. Consider using one consistent and meaningful way to reference the content that is for assisting users in completing tasks or describing elements of the site.
Inconsistent spelling for "color" while setting up a site and "colour" within the help content. Make sure that localization is implemented consistently and correctly across all elements of the site.
Other things noticed while working through the tasks
At the Sign-in page, consider letting the user press the Enter key after entering in all the fields. Do not require the user to Tab to the Login graphic to then press the Enter key or to use the mouse to select the Login graphic.
It is not necessary to denote required fields when all fields are requirement for authentication of the sign-in page.
Any difference between "English" and "English US" under the Language drop-down list is a mystery. The apparent localization for "English UK" is great, but again, how it differs from "English" is also a mystery.
Use the conventional terminology of "Home" rather than "Main Menu" for the site's home page.
The global navigation elements are strangely centered near the top of the page on the dark gray background. It is more conventional to position these types of links are right-hand side of a global navigation banner.
There is no reason for the extra width of the left-hand navigation bar within the Customize My Text category. The length of the text is much smaller than the same allotted, and yet this page alone has a much wider navigation bar. Consider using common sizes for all similar navigation elements (i.e., create and follow a design style guide for the site).
Finally a Sabre product that uses automatic sizing of content based on the width of the browser!
The user is accessing the Sabre Virtually There web site, yet the site identification at the top of the page is "essential travel information". Consider modifying the page header with site identification and site branding so that the user has an immediate acknowledgement of the correct site. Don't make the user hunt for this identity in the title bar of the browser. If this is an agency customized site then the title bar information and the header information on the page should be consistent.
The center alignment for the primary navigation bar (the navy blue horizontal banner near the top of the page) creates an awkward flow of information. Consider following the convention of left-justifying the menu items on a horizontal navigation bar. This will facilitate the left-to-right and top-to-bottom processing of information for users in Western cultures.
All capital letters is less readable and considered by many user to a form of "shouting". Consider using the convention of book title capitalization for the items in navigation bars and sectional headings.
The Members, Privacy Policy and Help links are unnecessarily taking up vertical real estate space which results in less room to display content in the main body of the page. Consider moving these three links to the primary navigation bar. The links can either immediately following the existing links to the right of Destination Services or as a separate group that is right-justified on the primary navigation bar.
Although the left-hand column of the Home page is used by the Language option control and appears to be reserved for the secondary navigation bars, the area is predominately wasted space for the all important Home page content. A great deal of vertical scrolling can be avoided on the Home page if the full page width is used to display the content (i.e., more content makes it above the "fold"). Consider moving the Language control to the location immediately above the Newsletter promotion area. This will free up the real estate on the left-hand side of the main page body for Home page content.
It seems that the behaviors of selecting the Privacy Policy and Help links are reversed. Opening a new browser instance for the Privacy Policy content seems to be unnecessary since there is no need for the user to compare this content back to the Virtually There content, unlike the need to do this for the Help content. Consider displaying Privacy Policy in the main body of the page, and displaying Help content in a new browser instance if it can be referenced by the user to support the completion of a task back on the Virtually There site.
There method of labeling fields on the site is inconsistent for the usage of colons after the label and capitalization. Specifically, book title capitalization is sometimes used while at other times sentence capitalization is used (e.g., "View an Itinerary" compared to "Flight tracker"). Furthermore, some fields and controls include a colon after the label while other fields do not (e.g., "Flight Number:" compared to "Reservation code" which does not include a colon), and even some links erroneously include a colon after the link name (e.g., "More search options:" shown in the "Flight tracker" section). Consider following established web conventions for these issues or creating and implementing a consistent design style guide that fits the purpose and branding of the site.
It is confusing and misleading to include the triangle bullet points next to navigation menu items, actual bullet points for items in content, and also next to links throughout the site as a way to increase the significance of the link. Triangles are often used next to a single menu item as a way to provide secondary visual feedback for a selected navigation menu item, or they are used as a graphical control for expanding or collapsing a section of content or other items. Consider using a different shape graphic as bullet points in content, and reserving the use of the triangle as a secondary visual reinforcement for identification of a selected navigation menu. Specifically consider the following suggested examples:
Displaying a Destination Services navigation menu with the Mobile services category seems completely erroneous. There is no need for secondary navigation on a category page when all of the items are listed and linked within the main body of the page for that category, especially for a completely different category than the one selected. Consider removing the Destination Service navigation menu from the main category page for Mobile Services. If there is a required business or user need established for the presence of navigation within other sections then design a persistent site-wide navigation bar that allows access to all the sub-category areas of the site.
Including quick paths to many of the frequently used Destination Services tools within the main category page supports what users are likely to do in this section, however there is no description for the overall content and purpose of this category, only a few quick paths. Consider stating the purpose and nature of the content within this category on the main category page.
Assume you have booked a multi-leg travel itinerary through "Laurie's Travel", go to the homepage and click on "view a sample itinerary".
1. What hotel are you staying at in Barbados?
The hotel booked for the Barbados trip is the Treasure Beach Hotel. Although this information was eventually found by moving further down the page of bookings, the organization by booking type was not obvious and will not likely fit the mental model of the traveler using the site. The hotel information was expected to be found immediately after the flight to Barbados. Organizing the information on the page by chronology of event will match more closely to the mental model of most travelers, rather than by type of booking. Consider defaulting the itinerary to chronology of event, and allow for other organization of other sorting preferences as secondary.
2. What flight are you taking to Lisbon, Portugal?
The flight is on Iberia Airlines flight number 3111. However, many travelers are not savvy about codes and short names so consider spelling out all abbreviations and reformatting codes as a secondary means of describing the supplier. Specifically consider changing "Wed, Feb 25: IBERIA, IB 3111" to "Wednesday, February 25, 2004: Iberia Airlines (IB) flight 3111" to eliminate any confusion about the date or the travel supplier.
3. How would you get this itinerary sent to your mobile phone?
Initially, the evaluator tried the "Download to handheld" link because it seemed like the high-level classification for all handheld devices including mobile phones. It was also immediately noticeable at the top of the page with the graphic next to it and because it seemed to be one of four supported actions that could be performed to the itinerary. However, this was not the case and the user had to return back to this page to discover the Mobile Services menu. The difference between "Download to handheld" from the rest of the links under the Mobile Services navigation menu are unclear. The various items under Mobile Services are confusing because of the use of seemingly higher level categories that would fit any of these types of devices ("Download to handheld" and "Flight notification"), a specific device ("BlackBerry handheld"), the inclusion of a non-mobile option ("Add to calendar"), and the misleading name of a function ("Web phone access") that implies accessing a phone used on a Web site rather than a Web-enabled mobile phone. Consider simplifying this function with one link (possibly "Flight Notification" that navigates to a page describing all the various types supported and then have the user specify which method or device to which they would like to download. Then at that point if there is an area that requires a sign-in or subscription, that requirement can be presented to them.
4. Where's a good restaurant in Lisbon?
Although the initial steps to finding a restaurant in Lisbon seemed reasonably understandable within the Destination Info list and selecting the "LISBON, PORTUGAL" link, getting to the section that had specific restaurant information took too many steps and required making a decision down two independent but relevant pathways, Zagat Top List and Restaurant Row. Although users will likely find good information about both, consider including a much more useful way of providing the entire list of restaurants in Lisbon from both sources, and then display the specific rating for that restaurant by source(s) covering it. Apparently Zagat does not provide international listings so the time spent going down that pathway will be wasted and potentially frustrating for the user. There is no reason why the two services should be presented to the user differently - one operates within the same browser while the other opens another browser instance. The fact that the itinerary is already known by Sabre as are restaurants at the destination, consider suggesting this information on the same page that the itinerary resides regardless of the provider of the information or the service (i.e., just like the weather is shown for the various locations on the itinerary).
[Note: it seems to take an unexpectedly long time to load pages past the itinerary and back again. The evaluator is using a cable broadband connection. For users that may be on dial-up ISP service, these wait times are likely to be very frustrating. Consider making technical and developmental improvements to the serving of pages, accessing data, and page sizes to reduce this wait time.]
5. Is it going to rain or shine in Barbados?
Finding a quick look at the current forecast is very simple because the information is already presented on the same page as the itinerary. Accessing the forecast over the next couple of days is easy enough as well, but since all the links after each city in the itinerary goes to the same information, then consider placing one link after all the cities on the itinerary page that same something like "3-day forecast for all locations". Once on the consolidated 3-day forecast page, getting a forecast for a specific location is more laborious due to the requirement of re-entering the location into the Weather control. The advantage of spawning a new browser instance for the 5-day forecast is not clear. Although it is good to provide the flexibility to locate a forecast for any city, it is unlikely that users will be too interested in forecasts outside of their immediate itinerary locations. Consider adding a link next to each location that will take the user to a detailed forecast for that location. This will save the user several steps for accessing this information.
6. You want to receive a trip reminder and be notified of any flight changes via your email and voice message for your return flight. Register to receive a trip reminder and flight changes for your departing flight via your email and voice message.
It may be confusing to users whether to choose the "E-mail this itinerary" near the top or the "Notify me of flight changes" next to the first flight segment since the user may be thinking in terms of e-mail notification for the itinerary in general or for the method of notification. The proximity of the "Notify me of flight changes" link to the flight information may be advantageous, however it may be a bit concealed due to the fact that it does not look like a link and as such blends into the header information of the first flight. Likewise, if the link is going to reside in this location, the same link should be located on the heading for each flight since the user may be focusing on any given flight, not just the first one. Furthermore, the other functions for the itinerary are mostly grouped at the top of the page, however this one is not located there. The item in the Mobile Services menu called "Flight notification" may be the correct link to select , however it requires that the user is thinking solely about Mobile Services and not e-mail or other potential methods of notification. Consider placing the link with the other itinerary functions at the top of the page where it is more clearly an itinerary action and better represented by as a hypertext link.
[Note: the color convention for hypertext links are not followed throughout the site.]
Again, there seems to be no real need to spawn a new browser. All of this process can be done within the original browser by including a link at the end to return back to the itinerary.
On the Flight Notification page the link for "Create my Member Account" is too far removed from the focus of the page, the sign-in controls. Consider including a short question or description like "Not a member? Sign up now" with the text after the question as a hypertext link and located immediately above the "Already a member?" text, after all, everyone has to sign up for membership as the first step. Alternatively, place this text and link immediately below the "Forgot your password?" link in the colored boxed so that both options for solving a problem with signing into the service are addressed in the same area.
Rather than "Continue with Flight Notification" consider just "Sign-in" or whatever log-in type terminology Sabre decides on for all log-in functions across products.
During the registration process there is no clear step-by-step process. Contact Information is fairly straightforward, however the next step is completely lacking in direction or instruction. In fact, the next step is very misleading and hidden because the Interests section seems to have nothing to do with Flight Notification. This section appears to be merely for marketing purposes that many users will refuse to answer. Many users may give up at this point and not complete the task. Upon further investigation, the user is expected to select "modify my interests" which would seem to be a way to set the interests of Entertainment, Travel, etc. However, the few users that may go down this seemingly unrelated and unwelcome path will find the place to specify the notification option which for some reason are called "Message Delivery Options for Reservation Code:".
7. Use your first name and last name. You want to receive the flight notification message in English. Your Email Address: yourname@yourdomain.com. Voice Message Phone Number: 555-555-5555. Describe how you would test each of these options. How would you expect it to work? Specify hours during the night which you do want to be telephoned. You want the trip reminder 2 hours before departure.
The form requires the user to input information that is already specified at registration, and could easily be pre-populated by the system (e.g., the name fields, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers). In fact, if the registration process would state that this information is gathered specifically for this purpose then users could store the default details in their profile and just modify it for exceptional circumstances within a specific itinerary or within the profile itself.
Error messages are vague and do not tell the user specifically what the problem is or the solution to the problem (e.g., "Error! At least one notification option is required."). Since "option" is used to mean two different things on the page, it may not be clear what the offending omission is to the user. However, another error did state to look for the highlighted field for the problem (e.g., "Error! Highlighted field(s) are invalid"). The issue with the second approach is that solely using color for the highlighting mechanism is not advisable because of color blindness in a portion of the user population (especially for men) and for devices used that are not in color (e.g., handhelds or web-enabled mobile phones). Consider stating the exact problem and solution in the error message and denote the problem location with another visual indicator in combination with the color highlight. Remove the exclamation point ("!") in the error messages.
The Flight Notification process is so laborious that few users may actually ever use it. Consider stream-lining the process to skip the registration since most of the information is already contained in the itinerary, with the travel agency, or within the web site service. Likewise, once register, if that needs to exist, place a simple control next to the flight segments in the itinerary that indicates a setting to use the Flight Notification that is already specified by default in the registered users profile. Then allow an option to change this or sign up from the Itinerary page.
The title of the page as shown in the title bar is a URL rather than an actual title in English. Consider giving the page a meaningful title for the browser title bar area.
Because the individual pages do not have names other than long URLs, using the browsers Back button drop-down list of previous pages is not helpful. If use of the Back button or other browser controls is problematic to the program (e.g., causes errors in data or the navigation to erroneous pages), then consider creating this site as a web-based application with the browser controls limited to what is safe to use. By doing this, the site will have to be designed to support the common browser functions that the user may need to use (e.g., navigating back to a previous page and printing the page).
The site identification is not clearly stated on the Sign-in page. Is the site "Sabre Corporate.Res", "Sabre Virtually There", or "GetThere"? Consider clearly identifying the site through reinforcing headers, titles, logos and branding, and de-emphasize competing elements such as logos and co-branding elements of other sites.
There seems to be an inordinate amount of real estate devoted to the box around the User Name and Password fields. The "sign in" box is much too large for all that is shown within it. Although, the implementation of the page allows for some limited automatic resizing for larger browsers, the static size of the box will not allow for smaller display resolutions such as 640 x 480 pixels, thereby requiring the user to scroll horizontally in order to see the whole page. Consider designing the page to automatically resize to lower displace resolutions as well as for larger resolutions.
The location of the instruction for the page is very far away from the controls for signing in. Likewise, the instruction is much too terse to cover the situations of what to do to sign in, how to register for membership, and what to do if there are problems in signing in. Consider rewriting the instruction to briefly but clearly cover all three scenarios, and placing the instruction closer in proximity to the actual controls that cover these functions. For example, place the instruction immediately above the User Name and Password controls; move the Sign In button to the space immediately below the User Name and Password (right justifying it with the right-hand side of the fields), and immediately follow this with links for Forgot My Password and Create New Account one below the other and left justifying them with the User Name and Password labels. This way all elements for instruction, inputting, and resolving the sign-in are placed together.
The Sabre Virtually There logo is completely out of place within the bounds of the GetThere sign in box. If the promotion of Sabre Virtually There is a business requirement, then consider placing it within the same area as the other external web site links in the "traveltools" group of the page.
The "traveltools" sections seems as though it may be a nice to have resource of travel related sites on the Web, however it is unexpected that these are all external sites and open in another browser instance. Consider indicating that the links are going to external sites and that another browser instance will be opened. Clearly indicating what site a link is going to open is much more useful than relying on user's noticing the link location in the browser status bar.
The Sabre Virtually There logo is static - it does not link to that site. Both the logo and the text below the logo for Sabre Virtually There should be links to that site.
The lack of any organized alignment scheme within the "arrival&departureinformation" group gives the impression of a haphazardly designed site - not the sort of first impression a site should give to a corporate user. Consider an orderly alignment such as left justification for the labels and controls in this group.
Apparently there is a session to the host open on the "sign in" page even before the user actually signs in. Leaving the "sign in" page loaded for a long time causes the session to expire. Consider opening the session to the host after the "sign in" page is loaded not before. Users that get distracted after the page loads, yet prior to signing in, should not have to go through the effort twice once they do try to sign in.
The instructions are not meaningful on the "create account" page. "Subsite Name (lowercase) and Subsite Login Key (use lower case)" may not make any sense to users coming here to create a new account. What is the difference between "lowercase" and "use lower case"? If none, then use the same term in both instances for the instruction, don't make the user figure it out or even hesitate at the inconsistency. If fact, consider removing this phrase entirely since it is redundant with the labels for the fields. The instruction immediately above the fields uses terms that are not the same as the field names themselves (i.e., "Enter the site name and site password in the following fields and then click the "Continue" button." is not the same as the field names of "Subsite Name (lowercase)" and "Subsite Login Key (use lower case)". Again, do not make the user figure it out or even hesitate at the inconsistency. Unless the user is given specific instructions and the exact information to put into the fields the task will likely lead to failure.
Consider taking the user directly to a GetThere Home page that provides all the unrestricted travel tools and sites that are available without sign in (authorization), and include a small sign-in control group for when the user wants to sign-in for access to his/her personal travel data or to research travel data that requires presentation of corporate negotiated rates.
If you must tell your users that the site is "very user friendly", then you probably have failed. Users should know whether or not the site is usable based on their experiences in actually using. Consider information the user as to what changes have been made in the design and functionality of the site rather than telling them that it is "very user friendly". For example, although it is in a smaller font and not emphasized with red lettering, most users would regard the following message as more important that the "welcome" text above it:
"Note: My Profile has changed to My Account. Access My Account to update any personal information and preferences."
On one hand the Message at the top of the page is an effective place to get the user's attention, however, on the other hand the message shown about Release 6 is not critical or useful to the task that the user is here to perform. The messages actually move the important interaction elements down the page, thereby requiring scrolling to use.
The focus, other than the Messages, seems to be on jumping straight into planning travel. For every trip planned, there is likely a need to later view that trip for printing, modifying, canceling, or other tasks. "My Trips" is severely de-emphasized on the page. For the place that is accessed to open stored trips that have been planned, taken, or cancelled seems to be every bit as important and possibly more frequently accessed than the "beginsearch" controls. Consider designing the presence of both sets of contents and controls on the Home page. Both are vital to what the user is there to do.
Selecting the Home item on the navigation menu presents a modal operating system message in the browser window that is not even relevant when a trip hasn't been started. The text of the modal message reads "Do you want to return to the home page? Itinerary that have not been completed or purchased will be lost." Lost? Where did they go? Can they be found again? Wait, I haven't even started an itinerary. Does that mean one has been lost without even starting it? Seriously, consider detecting whether or not an itinerary is actually started or opened prior to displaying this message. Likewise, since the message asks a specific yes/no question, then consider using those choices for the button labels - changing the default OK and Cancel buttons to Yes and No can be done for message boxes in Windows.
"Travel Reporting" comes out from nowhere all of the sudden? It's not on the Sign-in page, yet suddenly it's shown on the Home page. If the evaluator would not have already selected all the links in this group, and noticed that this new one was the only one that was in blue ("unvisited link") font, he never would have seen it. If this is the area for an authorized user to perform essential travel reporting functions, then concealing it among a group of external links in small font is about the worse place in the entire page to place it. Consider moving this function to a group of related functions that the user does. In the current design, consider placing it in the primary navigation bar. The link can be hidden or shown depending on the users authentication.
On the "myaccount" page, show the binary choice of "Expiration Date Reminders" with a simple checkbox. Drop-down list boxes should be used as a single selection control of 3 or more items in the list.
On the "myaccount" page under the "My Account Options" group of links, do not hypertext link the setting or preference for which the information is currently being displayed on the page. Leaving the link active can be misleading to the user who may think that there is another related page to go to.
The following message is not very clear and occurred after selecting Southwest as a preferred airline without entering a frequent flyer number: "Note: If you have made changes to your profile during this session, please refresh this page before making any further edits so that you may see your previously saved edits." Consider automatically refreshing the page whenever information is submitted for error checking.
The multiple windows opened by selecting the "Travel Reporting" link is confusing and overwhelming. It is not clear what this page is for, likewise, the page loaded in a new browser has no resemblance to the name of the link selected "Travel Reporting". In other words, the link called "Travel Reporting" opens the "Site Administration" page where there is no mention of "travel reporting" anywhere on it. Consider basing the name of the link and the page that it navigates to consistently.
The "Site Administration" page opens to a relatively small default size that hides the "Traveler Profile Administration" link near the bottom of the page, therefore requiring the user to scroll to see it. If it is essential to open a new browser window, consider opening it large enough to show all the important contents contained in it. Additionally, consider placing the link to the "Traveler Profile Administration" somewhere more relevant on the page than after the copyright information!
The difference between the options under "myaccount" and the "Traveler Profile Administration" on the "Site Administration" page (launched after selecting the "Travel Reporting" link on the Home page) is not clear or understood.
Work through various scenarios for booking a flight.
Right justification of labels in the "beginsearch" section, and throughout the site, is more difficult to read and more difficult to scan for a field the user is specifically trying to locate. Consider left justifying labels, yet leaving the fields vertically aligned one above the other.
Making all the labels into sentences is unnecessary for informing the user of the purpose of each field. Consider using meaningful labels for each field rather than complete the sentence style drop-down list boxes (e.g., just call the fields "Departure city", and "Arrival city"). and simple checkbox controls to convey whether or not there is a requirement for a flight, hotel or car (checkboxes are quite understanding for binary type choices).
Use of the Travel Calendar control is very awkward and prone to frustrating errors since there is no feedback for which date field the date selection applies. The highlight effect seems like a nice feedback mechanism for the user's date selections, however it does not seem to function properly and does not work in combination with the drop-down date controls. Even when the Travel Calendar is the only method used for selecting the dates, the default highlight for the current date should change with the first date clicked. Given that the highlighting behavior is erroneous and the interaction of the controls is enigmatic, the user may be prone to frequent input errors. Consider one of the more conventional javascript calendar controls as demonstrated at Travelocity.com or AA.com to assist the user in selecting travel dates upon which to base the search.
Inputting the destination as "San Jose" displayed a page with a message (as shown below) and a dizzying array of possibilities:
'More than one city was found matching with your entry of san jose. Please find the airport in or nearby the city of your choice and then click the "Select" button. If you do not find the airport or city you want to use, click the "Return" button and enter a different city. (30003-004010004)'
There is no "Return" button on the entire page. Furthermore, since the evaluator did wish to return to the previous page, he did so by selecting the browsers "Back" button. Although the correct navigation back did occur, unfortunately all the fields were reset to the default values. The lack of a "Return" function on the results back combined with the resetting of the page after using the browser control to go back may cause much frustration to users caught in the same scenario. Consider applying the missing control to the results page and preserving the values previously set upon returning the user back to the search page.
Is it really necessary to use red lettering to thank the user for booking on the application? Likewise, is it really necessary to "thank" the user at all especially if s/he has no choice, but to use this site for business travel?
Consider allowing various browser-enabled short cuts like auto-fill of typed text and stored values for fields. This will be especially beneficial in the departure and arrival city fields. Many travelers will be traveling to the same cities/airports on a frequent basis.
After selecting the "More Search Options" button, it appears that the user must select at least one preferred airlines in order to "view results" by one of the two choices given for that control. In other words, the user cannot search all commercial airlines and use the function for customizing the view of the resulting search. This is a flaw in the design since the user may want to "view results" in a certain way, but not search on preferred airlines. Consider implementing a control set that allows for the independent selection of these independent functions.
The preferred airlines do not seem to have no bearing on the stored frequent flyer programs. There seems to be a high correlation with affinity programs and preferred airline choices in searches. Consider giving an option to search for airlines the user has membership, or at least to filter out airlines that do not match to those programs technically, filter out) air
Drop-down list box values are alphabetized with the exception of the largest airlines in the USA. This may make sense as a short-cut to finding these frequently used airlines in this geographical market, however, to avoid confusing the sort order at least put a horizontal line after the short cut values in the list and the beginning of the alphabetical comprehensive list.
No traveler will know what the cryptic codes are under the flight numbers in the flight list (e.g., F3A2Y7B7H7M7Q7K7V7O7L7S7N7) unless they have been an employee in the airline or reservation business. Either generalize this fare code availability information into something like "seats available to book in the following classes of service: First, Business, Coach" or do not show the travel agent intended fare availability information at all.
The readability of the flight results page is poor due to the small font sizes, and the run-on of information from one cell to the next (e.g., the fare code availability data runs into the departure time of the flight). Consider streamlining the information and rearranging the layout to emphasize important information (e.g., departure/arrival date/time to/from specified airports, and the carrier/flight number) over less important information (e.g., company preference and notes regarding estimates of on-time performance, flight distance, flight time, and aircraft). For a decent example of this refer to the United Airlines web site for viewing flight choices.
There seems to be no distinction among the three company preferred graphical indicators (i.e., the 3 star ratings). Perhaps this is a default setting that has not been made for this training site. Regardless, consider showing these graphics only when there is a company preference made by an administrator, not when there are no preferences in the system.
Although it is good to allow the user to resort the search results by various means, the visual design does little to make it obvious how to do this. At first glance it seems that the user cannot sort the results. After investigating the various rows and columns on the page the user may notice the tiny font above the column headings that read "sort by" and know what this means. However, there is no supporting feedback on what to select for a sort other than the mouse over effect of the cursor arrow. Furthermore, only the actual text area of the cell is an active link rather than the entire area within the cell. Consider the following suggestions for sorting:
There is no mention of how to recover from this error message: "Too Close To Departure - The system cannot book itineraries this close to departure. (Cannot book itineraries within 4 hours of departure) (30086-000035028)". Furthermore, flights that are not legal to book should not be presented to the user. Consider removing such flights. Consider stating the problem in user understandable terms for errors encountered, and also state what the solution is or method of recovery for the error. In this case, the outbound flight selected turned out to be to close to the actual time of departure, however the user was not notified of this fact because the system did not validate the flights until after the user selected both the outbound and returning flights. This left the user with the above message above the list of flights for the *return* trip, not the outbound trip where the problem is found. Present the correct choices that match the problem encountered.
It may not be clear to the user how to start the flight search process completely over. Users may not associated the Home link with the way to start the flight search over completely. The Modify Search fields are good for users that wish to change the airport or date after reviewing the search results, however it does not provide for the same set of control for the flight search that was previously available. Consider providing easy paths back to start the search over. Consider including a more robust way to quickly modify the more of the search options than just the dates and airports (e.g., include the time fields).
Although the top of the page may state (in red letters) "Travelers are required to stay at "XYZ Corporation" preferred hotels" there appears to be no mechanism for automatically filtering out the option to search for other hotel chains. This does not seem to be a very good way to show or encourage the selection of corporate preferred hotels.
Consider rewriting the following notes at the bottom of the "selecthotel" page to be more understandable and grammatically correct. Likewise, chose something other than an asterisk at the start of each message, because a red asterisk is already being used to denote a "Negotiated Property". The messages are:
"*Not all hotels participate in, and advertise their availability in the airline reservation system.
*Hotels may "close out" their availability through the airline system when reaching high occupancy levels, however, if called may have a room available.
*All COMPANYNAME Preferred Properties will display, however, they may not be available, or the COMPANYNAME rate may not be available.
*TRAVELAGENCYNAME will verify hotel confirmations."
Corporate preference is show by the 3-star method for airlines, a red asterisk for hotels, and unknown for car rentals because of a task failure. Consider using the same means to show the companies vendor preference for all types of vendors (i.e., airlines, hotels, and rental car agencies)
In the process of reserving a hotel room, the user is shown the message below. This type of message seems to belong on the page that it references more so than it does here. Is there any reason for the right-pointing arrow character (">") at the end of the last sentence?
"Travelers are required to stay at "XYZ Corporation" preferred hotels. These hotel properties take precedence over personal preferred hotels. If you are not booking a "XYZ Corporation" Hotel, please indicate your reason in the Notes and Special Requests section on the Itinerary Plan Page prior to purchasing your reservation.>"
There is a lack of instruction regarding what is displayed to the user and what the user is to do, or is allowed to do, at the point of selecting a room type. Are there any corporate guidelines, preferences, or rules to follow? Can a traveler book a suite instead of a double-room if it shows up on the list? Consider filtering out room types that are not allowed by the corporation, and giving the user an idea of what to do for the this step in the process.
The evaluator tried to make a rental car book by pressing the "Search Cars" button no less than five times during the evaluation, tried the "Express Booking" button, and . The evaluator had to press the "Skip This Car Search" button to bypass the failed function. Consider more systems testing to eradicate "bugs" in the code.
There seems to be no way to add an airline segment to the itinerary once at the confirmation page (fortunately, there is a way to add a missed hotel or car reservation). Consider allowing the user to add a flight segment or start completely over for flights in the itinerary. The user may have forgotten a segment, or there may have been a lack of hotels or cars found later in the booking process which may impact the itinerary in part or as a whole.
Decipher all codes from Sabre or a vendors system so that the user can clear understand any restrictions or penalties (e.g., "NOREF/CHANGE100 PLUS FARE DIFF/NO VALUE AFT FLT DATE."). Do not expect even frequent travelers to know these travel industry codes. It also seems that the message in the area above the itinerary confirmation should be a place of special emphasis in communicating rules, warnings or guidelines to the user. It was surprising to find that this message was in small black font, where other more inert messages were in large red font.
The "Save As Template" button was pressed and an error message was presented because a name was not given for the template. Because the button is so far removed from the field, there was little association with it, and the button was deemed to be similar to other stand-alone buttons on other pages. Consider placing the button immediately to the right of the field it is acting upon.