Chris Rourke, User Vision

Researching the Visit Scotland Online User Experience

MRS Travel, Tourism & Hospitality Conference May 2016

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MRS – Travel & Tourism, May 2016

Visit Scotland and User Vision

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User Vision has applied its user research and user-centred design consultancy with Visit Scotland for several years

User Needs research

Information Architecture

Expert UX evaluations

Website usability testing


Visit Scotland and User Vision

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We have also research the offline experience such as the visitor centre in Edinburgh


Free leaflets area (1)


Free leaflets area (2) – Areas of interest

Top racks with “Where to Stay” leaflets

Top racks with “Scottish Attractions” leaflets

Middle racks with “West Lothian, Edinburgh and East Lothian” leaflets

Middle racks with “Explore Scotland ” leaflets

Bottom racks with “Edinburgh ” leaflets


2012

2004 The evolving Visit Scotland site


Updating the Visit Scotland site

Visit Scotland’s existing site had performed well, but due to current digital trends and user expectations, change was needed

Significant growth from previous relaunch was beginning to plateau

A new consistent Global Brand vision was not represented

Functionality and content on competitor national tourism sites had increased

Imagery was not as well utilised as possible

Inconsistent experience between desktop site and mobile (not responsive)

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User research and redesign plan

Three main sets of research

1. Expert evaluation by UX consultants on the current site to identify potential issues, inform the design brief and start planning user testing

2. Usability testing of existing site to understand how well it served user needs

3. Usability testing of the prototype new site during development

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Usability test – First Round

Testing on the existing site with representative users from the UK, USA and Germany

Specifically, we wanted to look at the following aspects:

What are users’ initial impressions of the home page and site navigation?

What are their expectations of the site?

How well does it support search for accommodation or attractions?

User performing their own tasks as well as those as part of the testing

Users recruited representative of the target users for travel experience interests and consideration of Scotland as destination

5 each from Scotland, England, USA and German (using German site)

Think aloud protocol and depth discussions on their travel goals

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Findings – Round 1 testing

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Top three problem areas we found:

1. Quick Finder and SearchDifficult to perform searches and refine results

2. Content often inaccurate or incompleteDid not always match expectations or meet needs

3. Itinerary planningDifficult to explore and uncover related content


Example issue: Quick Finder search results

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“This wouldn't be my first port of call for accommodation… It’s not as reliable as I’d expect it to be”

Reasonable search parameters return zero results


Example issue: Content not accurate or useful

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“I don't think I'd stay on this site. It's a shame, because I

would probably pre-book tickets. If they had a link to do that I

would do it.”

Available information not always accurate or complete

Location information insufficient


Post-test interview

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“The focus on the beatiful countryside”

“Visual images”“Photos are outstanding,

very special”

“Visually I like the layout of the homepage –

there’s a lot going on, but it’s tasteful”

“It’s got lots of good stuff, heaps of good stuff”

“It has a lot of information”

“The search option”“I love this, ‘Meet the

Scots’”“It’s taken me on a story”

What did you particularly like about the site?


Post-test interview

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“It can be a little overwhelming”

“There’s a little bit too much information really, I’m not sure which menu I should be clicking on”

“I think it’s hard to negotiate around it”

“The navigation bar, the title and then the

subtitle, I think that’s clunky and conufsing”

“I would just like it to be a bit more informative

about what you can actually do there”

“Content should be more comprehensive”

“I wasn’t quite sure whether I was being

taken out of areas and into other areas”

“I don’t think it says Scotland”

“I feel misunderstood”

What did you dislike about the site?


Usability test – Second Round

Re-testing tasks as well as new tasks on the new site in development with users from the UK and USA

How well do users perform the same or similar tasks on the new site

Has the new search functionality helped

Are mobile layouts helping

5 each from Scotland, England and USA

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Great First Impressions

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https://youtu.be/otEcULXOpGc



Phase 1 recap: usability testing

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In Phase 1, the top three problem areas were:1. Itinerary planning

Difficult to explore and uncover related content

2. Content often inaccurate or incompleteDid not always match expectations or meet needs

3. Quick Finder and SearchDifficult to perform searches and refine results

In Phase 2, we found that:

1. Itinerary planning - much easier with the prominent ‘Explore’ and ‘What’s Nearby’ maps

2. Content - inspiring and informative

3. Search and filtering - still posed problems but improved

4. Maps presented some new usability issues

5. Imagery and videos – very successful


Top level navigation

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These subjects at the top are good. Quite easy, simple and not

too fussy.

Top level navigation was straightforward and easy to use (P)

Participants were easily able to navigate into categories relevant to their searches.

Faceted navigation - Participants searched for accommodation with the ‘Accommodation’ or ‘Destinations’ menu. Both offered correct routes.

‘See & do’ a very successful first step to finding attractions

‘Holidays’ a successful entry for types of holidays providing inspiration


Maps were difficult to understand

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I don't know what that arrow meant, I didn't know

what the circle meant, I had no idea what they meant.

Recommendations:

Include a map legend explaining what the icons mean.

Consider replacing the flags with category-specific icons, such as houses for accommodation, so that they are clearer to users.

Many participants did not understand the symbols on the interactive maps

At least two participants went through an entire session of using the website without figuring out what the numbers represented.


Video success and popularity

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Rich Imagery throughout set ambiance

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Mobile responsive design

Put in image on mobile, tablet

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Moving forward

This research supported a very successful redesign – but there is more to be done

Ongoing improvements to the search functionality based on search queries

Logged in / secure area of site for storing content and sharing – Itinerary planner

Continuous improvements through current and ongoing site research

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Site feedback

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Conclusion

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55 North Castle Street

Edinburgh

EH2 3QA

United Kingdom

Tel: 0131 225 0850

@UserVision

www.uservision.co.uk

ClientLogo

Chris RourkeCEO

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[email protected]

Video



Submission Research to improving the online experience of visitors to a national tourism body Presenters: User Vision and Visit ScotlandIn 2015 Visit Scotland sought to improve its consumer facing website www.visitscotland.com to grow visitors to Scotland whilst developing the economic benefit of tourism to Scotland’s economy. A new site was planned to inspire people to choose Scotland as their destination, provide information to plan a visit and make it easy to book with a strong focus on the visitor. Visit Scotland wished to incorporate the views of users during the design to understand their experience of the site and what an ideal national tourism site should include. User experience agency User Vision led the research into user needs to support the design. Over the course of about 6 months our research included three main phases:Expert usability evaluation of the current site for user experience and usability and competitive evaluation with reference to selected national tourism sitesUsability testing of the current Visit Scotland site with representative users performing a combination of information finding and booking tasks. Desktop and mobile platforms were used and the site was tested with participants in Scotland, England Germany and the USA.Usability testing the prototype new site during development and consultancy on implementing required changesThe results from the research were highly effective in shaping a more customer-centred design. Many insights came from the initial testing of the site, especially from the customers abroad, that impacted the search, navigation design and the type of content promoted on each page. Several examples of these will be included in the presentation. In our joint presentation we will describe the process for planning and conducting the user research, the tasks used in the usability testing, and how the findings from the research were interpreted and applied by the Visit Scotland digital team.

Current status of site At the time of writing (Dec 2015), the site is still in development (launch is planned for Q1 2016) but we are confident that the user-centred approach will reap rewards through increased enquiries and bookings, more engagement on the website, and improved customer satisfaction. We will of course present the most current qualitative and quantitative data on the changes between the previous site and the new site based on this research. We can also use Visit Scotland’s feedback back tool to get an indication of improvement in terms of the NPS score before and after the new site.Other research - Putting this research into contextThis research for the new website was the most recent research conducted by User Vision for Visit Scotland. We would be glad to briefly mention some of the previous research that we have conducted beyond this specific project. For instance we have conducted other research including eye tracking of the interior of the Visit Scotland tourist information centred to better understand the placement of brochures and signage for a better customer experience.

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http://www.visitscotland.com


Rough outline – 20 Minutes assumed

VS background and audience

Issues with previous site (images) , feedback that had been received

Project plan for the research, recruit parameters , tasks etc

How this was tested on existing site in R1 then prototype R2

Making the changes to the proto

implementing the final chages – the challenges etvc

How VS is managing it going forward

Other VS projects – the eye tracking in centre

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Chris Rourke, User Vision

Travel

Transcript of Chris Rourke, User Vision