Maya Castro Gutiérrez

Research Methods

• Screener Survey
• Usability Testing - Existing Website
• Business Model Canvas
• Competitive Matrix
• Competitive Feature Analysis
• Comparative Feature Analysis
• Card Sorting
• Heuristic Evaluation
• Site Map
• User Flow
• Next Steps

Client

The NYC Department of Parks and Recreation is a government agency that oversees all of the things related to public space in New York City.

Screener Survey

Our team sent out a screener survey in order to find a minimum of five people to do Usability Testing on the NYC Parks website.

Our goal was to find testers that were similar to our archetype: a NYC mom looking for activities to do with her friends as well as with her child. After sending out the survey through several channels we located five qualified candidates.

Usability Testing - Existing Website

*insert usability test result image*

Overall, users were able to complete most tasks either directly or indirectly despite the website's confusing interface.

Task 1 encountered mishaps with User 3 and 4 not being able to  complete the task well after 3 minutes had passed. They struggled finding classes despite attempting multiple ways of trying to find the information.

User 1 was the only user to indirectly accomplish each of the tasks by exploring unrelated tabs.

We believe these tasks are reflective of the core functionality of the site and improving specific elements such as the navigation system and page layouts will allow users to complete each task at a higher success rate.

Business Model Canvas

Our business model is based on our understanding of the NYC Parks system, how it runs and who its users are. The parks are predominantly dependent on the NYC government and donations to maintain the vast park system and provide programs for the public. The customer base is drawn from every resident of the 5 boroughs, plus any number of the millions of tourists that visit the city every year. In addition to free open spaces the parks run numerous programs and events and maintain recreation centers and playgrounds throughout the city

Competitive Matrices

We chose to do four competitive matrices to gain a well-rounded understanding of who is in direct competition with NYC parks. We identified the park’s competitors to be the YMCA (NYC), Chelsea Piers, The Natural History Museum, I Love New York website, and Rye Playland. Each of its competitors draw users away from parks and provide some form of space, entertainment, or programming. 

The matrix above compares Indoor/Outdoor and NYC/Outside NYC. We found that NYC parks is it’s unique amongst its competitors being the most outdoor and located in NYC. The matrix below compares Indoor/Outdoor to Free Admission/Paid Admission. Again, the NYC parks stand alone. They are both free and outdoors. 

The matrix above compares Indoor/Outdoor and Programs/No Programs.The YMCA is NYC’s closest competitor in this matrix since it offers both outdoor space and programming.

The matrix below points to Paid/Free and Programs/No Programs. Again, NYC parks stands alone as being free and having programs.Their competition either has no programming or you have to pay for it. 

Competitive Feature Analysis

Our Competitive Feature Analysis revealed that the NYC Parks website has more features than its competitors. Our initial response was to say that this translates to the site having too many features and too much text. In reality and based on our other research methods, it is that there is too much information shown at one time, and that it is organized poorly. .

Comparative Feature Analysis

Our Comparative Feature Analysis produced similar results as our competitive analysis. New York City Parks has many similar features to comparative businesses/websites. 

We were surprised to find that the MTA did not share many features with NYC Park’s website despite having a similar customer base. We attribute that to the nature of the business and its primary focus being on transportation. 

Card Sorting

After looking at the results of the closed card sort, it appears that the users placed approximately 35% of the words in the same categories as the website. In the open sort, there was only an approximate 10% match to categories on the website. Many similar primary navigation categories appeared in the open sort but the information placed inside those categories varied greatly in comparison to the current site. 

Heuristic Evaluation

After performing feature analysis we applied the ABBY method to 5 specific pages within the NYC Parks website in order to examine the interface and judge its compliance with recognized usability principles.

Our site ranked highest for credibility and lowest for communication, delight and accessibility. Based on these results we can see that there are multiple areas that should be improved for a better user experience.rta.

Site Map

The NYC Park’s website content pages have multiple utility bars at the top. Multiple search bars have been housed under each main tab and repetitive information tabs have been used. The sitemap contains thousands of URLs because it is updated frequently, but no indices or patterns have been considered. There is valuable content that users might need but it is very crowded, jammed and cluttered, not well managed nor visually planned.The above sitemap is only three tiers and main utility bar. The sitemap is not simple or minimalistic. The website is very large and the content is not well linked internally. The sitemap provides repetitive information and can be overwhelming for users.

User Flows

|

After completing our site map we created two user flows and analyzed how our intended user may navigate the NYC Parks website, and identify areas where the navigational flow can be improved.

The task shown above is to find an exercise class in a NYC park. The first thing that you need to do is decide which tab to search through —Programs or Events. Beyond these points, the paths are long and contain many decision points adding to the length of time used to complete the task. 

||

Overall, the path to finding a park on the website is fairly easy. There are two main navigation options —via the search bar on the homepage or by the parks tab within the top-top-level navigation panel. From there users are able to filter their search multiple ways are are given a list of results

Prototype

Please follow this link: https://invis.io/RAPJWRRHP9D 

Next Steps

We recommend for the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation to streamline the information and content found on the website to more succinct groups so that users can better navigate the website. It would also be best if they included more visuals cues, such as photographs and illustrations, to help users pay closer attention to the information that is being presented to them.