Cassie Swanson Intro. To Web Publishing Jacquie Lamer 10/27/2011 Usability Test of NYTimes.

com Audience According to New York Times demographic data from Nielson NetRatings (last updated in March 2009), 17,183,000 of their unique visitors are adults ages 18 and up. Most of their unique visitors are over the age of 35 at 12,895,000 visitors. 14,493,000 have some sort of college education. Their data also implies that most of their users have a household income of $75,000,000 and up. The majority of their

visits are also mangers and professionals. There are 300,000 more male visitors than there are women. According to Quandcast.com (updated in September 2011), their demographics show that people over the age of 35 count for 32 percent of New York Times visits, but it also said that 31 percent are ages 18-34 and ages 50 and up are 33 percent of their visits. Theres not a huge variance in those percentages, but Nielsons demographic

data portrayed otherwise by providing real numbers.

Quantcast also shows that there are more male visitors than there are women. Neilsons data showed that there was a big variance between the number of men and women visits. Quantcast portrays a small variance by displaying that there are only 6 percent more men

visitors than there are women.

Quantcast doesnt show a huge variance in the income of their visitors either. The Nielson data showed that the majority of their

visitors have an income between $75,000 and $100,000 with a unique audience of 8,352,000. That is 3,000,000 more visitors than their visitors with and income of $100,000 + a year. Nielsons audience demographics doesnt even mention visitors with an income less than $75,000. Quantcast displays visitors with the income of 30-60k that count for 22 percent of New York Times visits. It also shows 26 percent of their visits have an income between 60-100k. Quantcast displays that the majority of their visits actually come from people who have an income over 100k at 38 percent. The time between the two sources of data may be the reason why they are different.

A very interesting percentage I found on Quantcast was that 75 percent of the households that visit the New York Times site dont have kids. That information wasnt included in the demographics information that Nielson NetRatings provided.

Quantcast says that 51 percent of visitors are regulars, 34 percent are passer-bys, and 15 percent are addicts. Regular visitors are defined as people who visit a site between 1 and 30 times a month. Passer-bys are people who visit once a month and addicts are people who visit a site more than 30 times a month. Chosen Testers My two testers that volunteered in the New York Times usability test were Brittany Tanner and Emily Lynch. Brittany Tanner is 20 years old and Emily Lynch is 21 years old. They were both females and were both not very familiar with the New York Times site. They would both be considered passer-bys of New York Times. They were chosen because the less familiar you are with the site, the more information you can gain. For example, people who are regulars may have most of their problems on the site figured out. They know how to get around most problems that New York Times may have because they are more familiar with the site. They were also chosen because they are adults that fit into categories of New York Times demographic data. They are in the 31 percent age range, have some college education, and have no kids in

the household where they live. Even though they are women, they still count for 47 percent of NYTimes.com visits. In the book Prioritizing Web Usability, by Jakob Nielson and Hoa Loranger, page 25 explains what a high-experience and low-experience user is on the web. Both of my testers would be considered highexperience users. Brittany has been on the Internet for 10 years and Emily has been using the web for 12 years. Although they are both high-experience users, I believe Emily is more experience because she is on the web more often than Brittany and has more experience with advanced behaviors. Emily claims to be on the web about 50 hours a week and is familiar with web chats, creating yearbook pages, and creating websites. She has even taken a class in high school that involved learning how to create websites. She has worked with both Apple and Windows computers. She can fix minor problems on a computer and even sometimes be a source for advice. Emily stays up to date with social media. She says the reason she is on the computer so often is because its always on when she is just hanging out plus the times she uses it for school, work, and sorority information. Brittany says she is on the Internet about 3 times a day, so about 21 hours a week. She didnt start using the web as early as Emily did, but still has a lot of experience. She knows the basics of the web and knows how to Facebook chat and use AOL instant messenger although

she doesnt use AOL anymore. She tries to always fix her computer problems, but sometimes has to receive help. She stays up to date with social media. Like Emily, Brittany uses the Internet for school, work, and sorority information. Brittany and Emily both get on the Internet at home and use it the most at night after all of their busy daily activities are done. They use a modem to connect to the Internet through Suddenlink Internet service. They both said that they sometimes have problems with their Internet not working or being slow, but it is still reliable. Brittany and Emily type fast and accurately. They used their Universitys laptops for this test. The laptops are HP Probook 6455b Notebook PC with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 Graphic with Windows 7 professional. Brittany and Emily both used Internet Explorer for their web browser to do the usability test as well. Usability Test A: Brittany Tanner Brittany generally gets on her computer in the living room of her home on Fourth Street. It can occasionally be disturbed by the sounds of cars speeding by and honking, as well as people walking to the bars at night. Brittanys living room consists of a lot of pink, black, and blue (especially pink). She sat on the loveseat north of the TV. The TV was not on. She was sipping on a cup of tea with her hair up in her pajama pants and crew neck. There is also a candle burning with a Cranberry

Mandarin scent. Her laptop sat in her lap as she sat Indian style on the loveseat. We started her test at 10 p.m. and finished at 10:55 p.m. First Task Brittany started the test by clicking on the Internet explorer logo on the bottom task bar of her laptop. When she was given the first task to find the 2011 Nobel Prize winner in economic science, she typed in the address bar, www.gooogle.com. Although she typed it in with an extra o, it still went to the correct search engine site. She stated, Im going to Google because Google knows everything. She took a sip of her tea and sat it down. She then typed in the search bar, nobel prize winner 2011 in economic science. She clicked on the first link that Google pulled up. It took her to nobelprize.org. She scrolled down a little with the sensor on the side of the mouse on her laptop. She then scrolled back up and saw the answer on the first page. Second Task To get to NYTimes.com, Brittany left the Nobel Prize page and typed in the address bar, nytimes.com. She then hit enter on her keyboard as it took her to the New York Times site. She continued to scroll with the sensor on her mouse on her laptop. She then scrolled up and back down before she found the link she wanted to explore. She

clicked on the link towards the bottom left side of the page Fashion & Style. She explains, I just love fashion and its what Im interested in, so Im going to go here. She clicks on the first link she sees titled, The Monograms meet: O Sits Down With RL. Brittany then says, I dont like Oprah, but I like Ralph Lauren. That title is clever though, or at least trying to be. She scrolls down with her mouse as she skims through the article. Once she is done reading, she clicks the back button and then clicks the link, Black Wedding Dresses designed by Vera Wang. Brittany shared her opinion about those dresses and that she thought they were gorgeous, but she would never wear black to her wedding. She stated that the black wedding dresses were very controversial. She got excited when she found out that Vera Wang designed Kate Middletons dress. She continued to scroll back up with her mouse. Third Task When I told Brittany to finish the tasks on the NYTimes.com and then find the date and place of Advertising Week 2011. A ehhh noise came out of her mouth as if she was nervous and unsure about what I was going to make her do. She then typed retyped nytimes.com into the address bar. She thought it was weird that the search bar was in the upper left corner of the page.

She typed in the search bar, Advertising Week 2011. She clicked on the first link. She scrolled down a little on the first link and then clicked the back button once again. She then continued to do the same thing with the 2nd, the 3rd, and the 5th link. She said, Whoa, I have no idea. Two of her friend walked through the front door and Brittany got distracted for a while. By 10:21 p.m., she clicks the back button on the page she is on and then adds where to the text she is searching in the search box. Her legs then sit themselves on the coffee table in front of the loveseat and she crosses them. By the time she gets to the third link, of her next search, she is convinced that none of the articles give the specific date and place of the event. She then gives up and says, Im going to Google this S*%#. She then adds a new tab and types in google.com in the address bar. The first link she clicks is www.advertisingweek.com. She than gave me the dates, but not the

place. October 3rd through the 7th, she said. She finished that task by 10:23 p.m. Fourth Task When Brittany is asked to find options for bars to watch the Big 10 in New York, she goes back to the tab with NYTimes.com (still leaving the Google tab open). To get back to the homepage, Brittany scrolls up and clicks on the New York Times logo. She searches, places to watch big 10 football. She clicks on the 2nd link, Big 10s As she scans through the article, still using her mouse to scroll, she

states, Park Avenue Country Club. She couldnt find other bars, so she clicked the back button and then clicked on the 5th link down. The next link gave her two more bars, TriBeCa Barand Blondies Sports Bar. At 10:27 p.m., she says, that was easy. Fifth Task When I told her to find a job at New York Times and email it to a friend, she scrolled down to the very bottom of the page by clicking on the scroll bar this time and clicked the link, work for us. Under Filter Jobs by Profession, she clicked on Finance, which kept her on a map, and as she said, didnt help.

Brittany clicked on the Start You Search Now banner underneath the navigation toolbar at the top of the page. The link took her to the Career Opportunities page. She specified her search by choosing Advertising from the drop down list for the Major Department category. She chooses New York for the state category. There were no results, so she clicked the back button instead of the search again button. She clicked on the search button again with no

specific categories this time. New York Times then provided her with a list of jobs available. She clicked on Acct. Executive, and then quickly clicked back because she realized there was an actions button across from the link of the job. There was a drop down menu titled Actions that gave her the option to email the job to a friend.

Sixth Task At 10:39 p.m., Brittany was told to find the October 19th New York Times front-page print edition and to compare the local paper to the national paper. She replied with, I have no idea what to do. She then decided to go to the homepage by clicking on the logo and search in the search bar, front page cover edition october 19th. She scrolls down to her options, then scrolls back up and types in the search bar, front cover image October 19th. She scrolls down with her mouse on her laptop, and doesnt find anything. She clicks page 2 at the bottom of the page. She then continues to repeat this action by clicking next every time she got to the end of a page. By the time she got to page 6, for whatever reason, she clicked on the article, Taking Big Risks to See a Chinese Descendant Under House Arrest. I told her that it had to be an image of the newspaper itself. She replied, I dont know where to find that! She then searched, newspaper in pdf form. Scrolls through her options and even looks at the multimedia options. She starts a new search and types in, front page

of newspaper October 19th. She then gets extremely frustrated and refuses to finish the task. Seventh Task When Brittany is told to subscribe to the RSS feed of the Bits Blog, she clicks the New York Times logo to go to the homepage. She starts a new search and types into the search bar, rss feed bits blog. Scrolled through her options and found nothing once again. She searches, subscribe to bits blog. When her options come up, she clicks the first link, Morning Take-Out, but then clicks black. Her next search was bits blog. She clicks on the first link, Technology: Bits. She then clicks the RSS button on the right of the page and continues by clicking subscribe to this feed.

Last Task The last task includes playing the game Finding Koi which is a mind game/attention game. To find this game she searches brain games playing koi. She scrolls with her mouse like usual and clicks on the first link and then quickly clicks back. She clicks on the New York Times logo to go to the homepage and try to find the games through there, but gives up. She then goes to her Google tab and searches, brain games playing koi The first link Google gives her is the correct link to the New York Times game. She then says, New York Times

sucks, Google found it. She thought it was sad that Google could get her there, but New York Times couldnt even take her there when its on their website. Usability Test B: Emily Lynch Emily usually spends her time on the computer when she is in her bedroom. Her bedroom can be described in two words: pink and black. The TV is on, but she doesnt pay much attention to it while doing her test. She is sitting up on her bed with her knees up and laptop resting against her raised knees. Her hair is down and she is wearing jeans and a loose fitted t-shirt. Her phone is sat next to her on top of her nightstand. Emily started her test at 6:55 p.m. and ended at 7:30 p.m. First Task When Emily is told to open a new browser, she clicks on the Internet Explorer icon on her desktop. She then maximizes the window that pops up. To finish the first task, she starts by typing in the address bar google.com. She then types winner of nobel prize in economic science. Just like Brittany, she clicks the first link, scrolls down and finds the answer. What sets Emily apart from Brittany is that she uses the arrow keys on her keyboard to scroll up and down. Second Task I gave her 3 minutes to explore the New York Times site. She scrolls with the arrow keys and clicks on one of the news stories

mentioned towards the top of the page called Ruth Madoff Says Couple Tried Suicide in 2008. It was hard to catch it in time because Emily clicks so fast on the Internet, but she clicked back and when she tried clicking on another article, she got a Please Log In page. She typed into the address bar nytimes.com to get back to the homepage. She then scrolls down a little with her downward arrow key and clicked on the link on the left side navigation bar to the section Dining & Wine.

As soon as she got to the page, she clicked on the thumbnail picture to the article Sweets Small Enough to Satisfy.

Emily said, This is a really cool article about mini desserts and bakeries in New York. I then told her that her 3 minutes of exploring was up and she seemed disappointed. Third Task When I told Emily to find when and where Advertising Week 2011 took place, she immediately went to the search bar on the top right of the page. She clicked in the box and typed, Advertising Week 2011. She clicked on the first link from her results and started to skim through the article and scrolling down with her downward arrow on her keyboard. At 7:01 p.m., she replied with her answer, October 3rd to the 7th. Just like Brittany, she did not find where it was held. Fourth Task To find options to watch the Big 10 in New York, Emily scrolled up on the page of the article she found with her mouse this time, and typed in the search bar, local options to watch big 10 football. She scrolled down with her arrow key once her results page showed up. She was not pleased with what she found, so she scrolled back up to the search bar, highlighted local options and replaced it by typing the word, places. Emily clicked the first advertisement that showed up on her results page. The advertisement link said, Big 10 Football Bars and it took her to Buffalo Wild Wings. She then clicked the back button next to the address bar. She clicks the second advertisement

that appeared on her results page. The second advertisement link said, watch big ten football.

She scrolled down a little on the page with her arrow key and the scrolled back up with her upward arrow key. Annoyed, she clicked the back button and once again, refined her search criteria. This time she highlights her previous search in the search bar and replaces it by typing, local sports bars. She scrolls down to view her results, and then decides to give up at 7:05 p.m. Fifth Task To find a job and email it to a friend, Emily decides to search in the New York Times search bar, job listings. The first link that appears on the page is, New York Times Section Job Market. It took her to the nytimes.com & Monster page. The bar under Keywords, she types, New York Times. She mouses over the Search for Jobs button and clicks. Once the page is displayed in her browser, she scrolls down with

her arrow key. She clicked on the left side box and hit her downward arrow key on the keyboard to choose a radius, but then decides to use the job search bar at the very top of the page. It already preset what she wanted to search, so she just clicked the button with the magnify glass.

She clicked the first link that appeared, which was Assistant Editor, Oncology Times. She scrolled down with her downward arrow key and clicked the link, email this job to a friend. This job however, was not a job of New York Times. Sixth Task To find the front-page edition of the October 20th newspaper, Emily first went back to the homepage by typing in nytimes.com into the web address bar at 7:10 p.m. She clicked in the search bar and typed, print edition October, 20 2011. She scrolls up and down using her keyboard arrows on the results page and continues to scroll up and down with a confused look on her face as if something was going to change. She decided to try finding it on the homepage by clicking the New York Times logo. She scrolls down with her arrow keys and back up. She then sits all the way up on her bed sitting Indian style. She tries the search bar again and types, front page October 20, 2011. She decides to click on the first link and then states, I have no idea what this is and gave up once again.

Seventh Task She mouses over to her trusty search bar and types in bits blog. Before she hits the enter button on her keyboard, she mentions a thought in her head. Maybe the search bar is always on different sides because it goes to the side with more navigation and less information. Once she hits enter and gets to the page with her options, she clicks the first link, Technology: Bits. She finds the RSS button on the right side of the page and clicks on it. She then clicks the subscribe link. Last Task To find the game, Playing Koi, Emily starts to type in the search bar, Attentio. She realizes right away that she wasnt typing in the right search bar. She accidentally started typing in the bits blogs

search bar.

She then clicks back two times and searches in the New York Times search bar, Attention Games. She scrolled down a little and then back up with her arrow keys. She then repeated this process with the

searches, brain games and playing koi. She searches, playing koi games brain games. She clicked on an advertisement for free online games. She goes to the address bar and then types, google.com. She searches, playing koi new york times. Emily then decides to go back New York Times by typing in the address bar, nytimes.com. She searches in their search bar, playing koi again. She then clicked on a Yahoo sponsored link, play fish. She clicked back twice to get to the homepage of New York Times. Emily began to scroll down with her arrow key on the homepage and finds a link for Crosswords & Games on the left side navigation bar. Once she got to the Crosswords & Games page, Emily clicked on the Brain Games link.

When she got to that page, she instantly found the game Playing Koi next to the thumbnail graphics of two Koi fish. Testing Conlusions Comparison of Testers Emily and Brittany were both very reliant on the search bar to find everything in the New York Times site. They also both used Google to find the answer to their first task and whenever they couldnt find something on the New York Times site. That did not surprise me

because Google is one of the most popular search engines and because there is so much information on New York Times website, it is hard to find one specific thing. I noticed that they tried very hard to keep searching and stay focused on their task. You could tell that they wanted to give up after 2 minutes, but after about 5 minutes they refused to look any further because they just couldnt complete the task. Because they were both high-experience users, they typed what they wanted to search quick and moved through the pages fast. Brittany was slower than Emily at completing the tasks, but was also more distracted by her surroundings. Brittany relied heavily on Google, while Emily only tried to use it once during the time they were supposed to stay on NYTimes.com. Brittany liked to scroll with her mouse sensor on her laptop and Emily almost always scrolled with the arrow buttons on her keyboard. Emily knew how to type more specific searches which helped her find answers faster and complete her tasks. One thing that surprised me about Emilys test was that she didnt use the link Work for Us at the bottom of New York Times page. High experience users should know that there is usually always links at the bottom of every page such as, contact us, about us, and work for us. Efficiency I dont think it was easy for users to complete their tasks. There is just too many links and information on the homepage. It

makes it hard to spot and find something that you are looking for. I think New York Times needs to condense a lot of their links and have only a few main stories on the front page. Their search bar wasnt too bad, but I dont think it includes everything to their site. For example, their games and front page of their newspaper did not show up in their results when searched. You have to go through different routes and links to get to certain pages. A person who visits the site should find what theyre looking for in less than 2 minutes. If they cant find it in 2 minutes, then they will leave the site and look for it somewhere else. Errors I dont think my users made that many errors. If they did make an error, they usually realized what they did wrong. If anything, they should have browsed more through the web site rather than typing everything into the search bar right away. I think using the search bar is something most low-experience users use. An error Emily made was not finding a career with New York Times. She found one in New York, but not for New York Times. She should have known to go to the link at the bottom of page. Another error that Brittany and Emily both made was not giving me the place of where Advertising week was held. My Conclusion I think most of the problems are the sites fault and not the users. I dont think there is any way that a very low-experience user could have completed very many of the tasks. The site is too chaotic

and confusing. Its very difficult to find something youre looking for unless you know the main details of the article youre trying to find. That still requires the search bar. They have plenty of content, but not good usability. They now have a broad audience and they should take that into account. I think they should have some kind of log in with a quiz to determine each users interests. That way, they can find stuff that pertains to them on their homepage instead of having to go through many links and sources to find what theyre looking for. They have a tough competition with other news sites.