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Usability Evaluation of Ticketmaster
Evaluating a website for usability.
Type
Coursework for INST631
Fundamentals of HCI
Role
Heuristic Evaluation
Usability Test
Team
Individual Project
Tools
Zoom, Word, Web Browser
Duration
2 Weeks
About the Project
The Exercise
This project was an exercise in usability evaluation of my selected website - Ticketmaster. The evaluation was done in two stages - first an expert evaluation using Ben Schniederman's 8 rules of usability, then an actual moderated usability study of the website.
The two stages are described below:
Part 1 - Expert Evaluation
I evaluated the interface of Ticketmaster – specifically the ticket selection process, transaction and homepage. Ticketmaster is an online sales and distribution platform for tickets for concerts, sports, theatre, family, and other events. The website allows you to browse through events as per location, genre, artists, and venues. As this website offers a diverse range of entertainment events, I want to understand the level of customization and control a user has when looking for concerts of their favorite genre or artist.
I chose to evaluate this website because Ticketmaster features heavily on web listicles that feature ‘Brands to Avoid’, and I hope to learn more about the dark patterns on display dampening the experience of booking tickets using this website
Using Ben Schniederman's set of heuristics as my yardstick, I found certain inadequacies on the website, which I have suggested improvements for.
The report can be found here.
Part 2 - Usability Testing
I created a task list based on Ticketmaster of common tasks that users could encounter. Then, I recruited six participants, including a pilot participant, to conduct a remote moderated usability study. The paparticipants were tested on task performance, time performance and user satisfaction. They were encouraged to verbally take me through their thought processes. Then, I conduced an exit survey to gather their thoughts about the whole experience.
The report can be found here.
Takeaways
The heuristic evaluation using Schneiderman’s 8 Golden rules of Interface design was a
solo exercise I conducted to understand the interface. It helped me expand my
understanding of the metric used, and helped me compartmentalize my thoughts about the
problems I experienced with the interface.
The usability testing activity allowed me to acquaint myself with the viewpoints of other
individuals. It helped me understand that there can be different approaches that could help
you arrive at the same answer. I witnessed five users use the same interface very
differently from each other, and each test gave me clarity on the usability flaws of the
website I chose.
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