Usability testing

1. Jack Frazier
Jacquie Lamer
Web Publishing
26 February 2019
Usability Test for EnterpriseCarshare.com
Test Preparation
To prepare to test EnterpriseCarshare’s website with other users, I performed all of the
tasks myself before I had other people perform them. Here is my experience with each task.
I performed my trial run in room at my desk. I only had a lamp on, not the overhead
light, so the light was ambient. None of my roommates were home so there were no outside
distractions. I accessed the website on the Safari browsing software on a 2017 MacBook Pro.
Task one was very straightforward. To find the EnterpriseCarshare’s presence at Saint
Louis University I clicked on “Cities”, “St. Louis”, “Universities”, and clicked on Saint Louis
University’s link. Then I looked at the map and saw that there are two vehicles available on
opposite sides of the campus. All of the tabs that I needed to click were located at the top of
the page so I found what I was looking for right away with little scrolling and searching.
For task two I picked up where task one left off. On the Saint Louis University page, I
clicked on “Learn More” under rates and fees. A chart popped up with all of the fees necessary
to rent a car for three hours. It is $9 and hour and there is a $35 application fee, so if you add
those up, the total is $62. This step was a little confusing because some rates were crossed out
and stamped as “Waived” so I didn’t know if they applied or not. Also I got confused at what

2. the difference was between an application fee and a yearly fee. There is no text that explains
each rate, just the individual numbers.
For task three, I scrolled down to the section that says “User Eligibility” and found that
the credit card used must be under your name. Thus, no, your parents can not pay for you to
rent the car. To find how I will be charged I had to scroll around for a little bit. I then saw that
there was a tab on the “How it Works” video section that said “Payment”, so I watched that
short video. It said that it just charges your credit card every time that you make a reservation
and that all invoices are available online, so that you can look at your car sharing history. This
task took me much longer than the first two tasks.
From scrolling around during task three, I remembered seeing a “Liability” section. This
says that customers are responsible for the first $1000 of any damage or loss and that
Enterprise Carshare will extend the liability protection up to the state’s minimum required
amount. This task took the least amount of time to complete and didn’t even require any
clicking.
Overall, I had a good experience performing these tasks on the website. It is naturally
very modern and pleasant to look at. The only time I got a little frustrated was when I was
looking for anything related to money. I think they need some additional content that further
explains what needs to be paid and when. One of the biggest things that people are the most
cautious about is their money and I feel like this was Enterprise Carshare’s weakest area. I’m
excited to see what my testers think about the site.
Choosing Participants
Tester 1:

3. My first tester is Cayla Adamson. She is a 19 year old student at Northwest Missouri
State and also works part time. She has no prior experience with Enterprise Carsharing or car
sharing in general, but I picked her as one of my testers because she is someone that would be
very likely to use a car sharing service. She lives only half a mile from campus but she’ll be the
first person to let you know that she dislikes walking back and forth between her apartment
and campus. She also shares her one car with her twin sister, so she does not have access to
her car most of the time even though she needs it to go to work and organizations that she is
in. She is very capable of using the internet but doesn’t spend surplus amounts of time on it.
Environment for Tester 1
• Location of test:
We performed the usability test at the Starbucks in the library at around 6 o’clock on a
Wednesday evening. We chose to do the test here because that is where Cayla was working on
homework that night. She says she goes to the library a lot, so this is the typical spot where she
browses the internet most.
• Physical environment:
The Starbucks in the library uses lots of lamps so the lighting was ambient and far from
harsh. There were lots of other people talking and working in the library, so there was a fair
amount of distractions, but for the most part it was a quiet place to work. Cayla did have her
phone sitting on the table when she took the test and checked it twice in the middle of
performing a task.
• Technical environment:

4. She used her school issued HP laptop and used Google Chrome as her browser. She was
connected to the school Wi-fi, which can be unreliable at times, but for time, it worked without
any problems.
Tester 2:
For my second user, I chose Eric Petersen. Eric is a 21 year old student at Northwest who
has never used any Enterprise’s services. However, since he is from California, he has used
Zipcar’s car sharing services before. He uses the internet all the time for work and school. He
uses the internet much more than Cayla does and since we are testing the website, I wanted to
get two testers with very different internet usage habits.
Environment for Tester 2
• Location of test:
I went to Eric’s home so that he could perform the usability test in the environment he
would be most likely to browse the internet at. We conducted the test in his living room.
• Physical environment:
The overhead light in the living room was on so the lighting was pretty harsh. One of his
roommates was playing video games in the same room and another was talking every now and
then on the other couch. There was a good amount of distractions. He was also very slouched
over on the comfy couch that he was sitting on with the computer balancing on his stomach.
• Technical environment
Eric completed the usability test on his school issued, HP laptop. He was connected to his home
Wi-fi which didn’t affect the test at all. He used Google Chrome with no plug ins.

5. Test Results
Initial Site Thoughts
When asked about their initial thoughts of the website, both of my testers said that the
website looked very modern. Cayla said it looked modern because of the big picture above the
fold and Eric specifically pointed out that the colors made the site look sophisticated. Both of
my testers mentioned that it’s nice that the rates are on the home page so you can find that
information right away.
Task 1: Determine the size of Enterprise Carshare’s presence at Saint Louis University: do they
have service there? How many cars seem to be available?
Summary for Both Testers:
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 4 4 4
Success Rate 50% 50% 65%
Highlights
Both of my testers took the same route in order to complete this task. They scrolled
down to cities, clicked on “St. Louis”, found the “Universities” tab and located “Saint Louis
University” from there.
The first issue with this task was the navigation. Enterprise Carshare has a very modular
website with different blocks taking up different sections of the website. Because of this, both
of my users’ first instinct was to find information by scrolling, not the navigation bar at the top.
Because of this, both of them were able to find the cities and click “St. Louis” right away, but

6. afterwards, the only way to find universities was to click on the tab at the top of the screen.
However, since their natural reaction was to scroll, it took them a long time to find the
“Universities” tab. Enterprise Carshare has many different routes that you can take to get to
one point, whether that be the navigation bar, a module on the web page, or the search bar. I
feel like this clutters the website and takes away from their unique content. Also, the
navigation bar at the top changes depending on which web page you are on. The first image
shows what the navigation bar looks like from the home page and the second image shows
what it looks like when you are on the “St. Louis” page. Overall, the navigation of the website
made it harder for my users to maneuver the website.

7. The second problem that my users encountered was the map on the “Saint Louis
University” page. Enterprise Carshare attempts to display how many locations and vehicles they
have at a location through a map tool. However, this way of communicating information proved
to be not so effective. The green dots on the map that show the locations of where cars can be
picked up are very small, and blend in with the other colors on the map. They are very hard to
see. Eric only saw one of the two green dots and concluded that Enterprise Carshare only has
one vehicle. To make things even trickier, the green dots only represent the location of the
vehicles, not the number of vehicles that are stationed at that location. In order to see the
number of vehicles, you have to click the green dot and then it will show you how many
vehicles are parked there. In Eric’s instance, he saw one of the location, but didn’t realize that
there are two cars at that one location. There is nothing around the green dots that prompted
my users to click on them, therefore, some information that Enterprise Carshare was trying to

8. display went unnoticed. In Cayla’s situation, she didn’t even realize that the map was there in
order to show people where Enterprise Carshare vehicles are located. The green dots blended
in with the map too well and she could not figure out how to find the vehicles. After about 10
minutes of searching, she gave up.
Biggest Problem
The map function was definitely the biggest problem with the first task for both of my
users. Again, the little green dots that Enterprise Carshare uses just aren’t big enough and don’t
stand out. They don’t even look clickable, so almost all of the information that they are trying to
portray through this tool is going unseen. Cayla got physically frustrated as she scrolled up and
down trying to find this information, not knowing that it was hidden within the map. Eric was
definitely unsure about his final answer as well.
Alignment to Heuristic: Visibility of System Status
The system status heuristic says that users should not be left in the dark. They always
need to know what’s going on. Although the words, “Saint Louis University Vehicle Locations”
were displayed large and clearly within the map module on the website, both of my users didn’t
know how to use, read, or understand the map function. They both didn’t comprehend what
was going on and therefore, couldn’t complete the task correctly.
Task 2: Determine the total cost of securing a vehicle for 3 hours on a weekend that you plan
to drive the vehicle about 100 miles. (Including all application fees, membership fees, and
usage fees.)
Summary for Both Testers:
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average

9. Average Satisfaction 5 5 5
Success Rate 100% 75% 87.5%
Highlights
Both of my users were pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to find the “Rates and
Fees” portion of the Saint Louis University page. The module is one of the first things on that
particular webpage and the text for it is very big. The placement of the module helped my users
find it very quickly because it was directly underneath the “Locations” module. I think after
finding the locations of the vehicles, the next thing that reasonable consumers would look for
would be the rates.
Also, both of my users really liked the chart that was provided to display the rates. I
think that rates on most websites are shown using charts, therefore, by following this standard,
I think Enterprise Carshare really helped my users feel comfortable when trying to find rates.
However, even though the chart drew the usability testers in, they both had trouble using it.
This ended up being my biggest problem.
Biggest Problem
Enterprise Carshare provides a lot of information in their “Rates and Fees” module, but
they don’t do a great job at organizing it. There are some fees are in the chart, while others are
not. Both of the fees are crossed out and either knocked down to a lower price or say, “waived”
so my users had a hard time determining which fees applied to them. Also, my users didn’t
know what the difference was between the “One Time Application Fee” and the “Annual
Membership Fee”. There is no information provided that explains the fees, so my users had to

10. guess at how much they would be paying. Cayla said her answer was $31, but wasn’t so sure
about it as she ended her sentence with, “I think”. Eric didn’t realize that the “Annual
Membership Fee” applied to him so he concluded that it would cost $21 and ultimately got the
task wrong.
Alignment to Heuristic: Error Prevention
The error prevention heuristic says that it is better to prevent an error before it happens
rather than letting users do the wrong thing and then having a pop up telling them they need to
go back. I think that if Enterprise Carshare reorganized their rates and fees information, they
could prevent a lot of miscalculated amounts by their customers. I think it would be best if
Enterprise Carshare had a drop-down box. That way, the box could list certain scenarios, the
user would find the one that related to them, and then the drop-down could limit fees that
don’t apply to that scenario by graying them out or getting rid of the option all-together. This

11. way, there would be much less clutter and customers would understand what they needed to
pay more easily.
Task 3: Assume your parents will be paying for your vehicle usage. Is that possible? How will
your account be charged each time you use a vehicle? How and where can you track your
vehicle reservation history?
Summary for Both Testers
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 1 2 1.5
Success Rate 66% 66% 66%
Highlights
My testers had no idea where to find this information. Both of them scrolled up and
down for several minutes before deciding that the information must be somewhere else and
not on the “Saint Louis University” page. Both of my users looked in different places in order to
find the information. Eric looked inside of the “Videos” module while Cayla ended up going to
the FAQ webpage. Before Cayla found this information in the FAQ, she searched through “How
to Become a Member”, “Meet the Fleet”, and a “Billing” tab.
Both of my testers were turned of by the video module. Cayla saw that the videos
explain how things work but decided to go to the FAQ instead. Eric verbally said, “I don’t want
to have to watch a video.” That pretty much sums up the whole problem. My users wanted a
direct answer on the screen in front of them like there was for the rates. They didn’t want to
have to spend time in a video in order to find information.

12. Both Cayla and Eric didn’t even know if the answers they came up with were right. They
got different information from different places within Enterprise Carshare’s site. In an early
paragraph in the FAQ page under “Billing” Cayla found that the website said that any card can
be put in and used so she assumed that her parents could pay for her. In a later paragraph, she
read that the card must be owned by the primary card holder and determined that her parents
could not pay for her anymore. In yet another paragraph, the website said that there are
“family plans” available, so she ended up concluding that her parents could pay for her through
a family plan. Eric found this family plan information right away, so his final answer was that
yes, his parents could pay for him. However, he mentioned that although the site said that
Enterprise Carshare offers a family plan, they don’t explain it. He wanted more information on
it and ultimately didn’t know if this would let his parents pay for his car sharing expenses.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem was definitely the clarity of the information. This task took about
three to four times longer to complete for my users than any of the other tasks. Details about
payment and family sharing were scattered on different pages and my testers really had to dig
to find those little details. All the information was not located in the same place and almost all
of the information about family sharing was not stated anywhere within the website.
Heuristic: Recognition Rather than Recall
This is definitely a recognition rather than recall heuristic. This heuristic says that
information needs to be visible so that users don’t have to remember information. My users
went back and forth between the video module and the FAQ and had to remember information
as they went since it was all displayed in different places. Again, there was no information

13. about the family plan or instructions of how to sign up for it rather than an individual plan,
which really confused my testers. They definitely did not feel familiar with the website.
Task 4: Determine your liability responsibilities if the vehicle you use is damaged while you
are using it.
Summary for Both Testers
Tester 1 Tester 2 Average
Average Satisfaction 4 5 4.5
Success Rate 50% 100% 75%
Highlights
Both of my testers were able to complete this task very fast in about one or two
minutes, even though they found the information in different places. Cayla found her answer in
the FAQ page. However, she couldn’t find a number value to how much she was liable for if she
damaged the car. The FAQ page under the “Physical Damage and Liability” tab only said that
customers are responsible for the damage fee and that fee varies depending on the location.
Eric was able to scroll down on the “Saint Louis University” webpage and find that customers
are liable for the first $500 of any damage. Overall, Enterprise Carshare did a good job of
making this information findable. This task took the least amount of time for both of my testers.
My users were still left confused about some information regarding liability. Cayla
wasn’t able to find the specific amount she was liable for at Saint Louis University, so she didn’t
know the amount of money that she would have to pay. Eric verbally asked me what would
happen if he totaled the car. He was left wondering if he would have to pay more if he totaled

14. the car or if he would still only have to pay $500. Enterprise Carshare did a good job of
displaying the base information about liability on their site, but I think a little bit more, in-depth
information would help users.
Biggest Problem
The biggest problem, as mentioned above, was the clarity of the liability rates. Again,
not all of the information was given in the location of where Cayla looked for liability rates and
Eric still had a couple questions that went unanswered. If Enterprise Carshare added more
information or user reviews in the module that Eric went too, I think all of his questions would
have been answered. Then, if they put a link to that module in the FAQ page that Cayla went to,
she would be redirected to all of the specific information that she was needing. That way,
Enterprise Carshare can say in multiple places that customers are liable for damage and then be
able to redirect their customers to more specific, in-depth information.
Alignment to Heuristic: Recognition Rather than Recall
The recognition rather than recall heuristic can be applied in this scenario. In Cayla’s
situation, she was clicking on several different pages of the FAQ. Some information was given in
one tab, while other information was given in another, so she had to constantly remember
what she had previously read in order to keep gathering information. If Enterprise Carshare
would keep all of the information in the same place so that it is all visible in one place, then that
would greatly reduce the users memory load.
Final Site Thoughts
Cayla and Eric had different opinions when it came to their final thoughts of the
website. Eric said that he felt like all of the information that you would need to know was

15. findable within Enterprise Carshare’s site. Cayla was pretty frustrated at the end of the test and
thought that all of the information needed for the reasonable consumer was not provided
clearly and took a lot of unnecessary time to locate. They both mentioned something about the
“Become a Member” button at the top of most of the webpages. Eric said that he felt like they
wanted you to become a member before you knew everything about their services and Cayla
seemed to become annoyed at the buttons towards the end of the test as she would make
comments such as, “No I don’t want to become a member.” Cayla also stated that although the
website looks modern and easy to use at first, most of the information was hidden from her.
Recommendations to improve user experience
Single problem being fixed:
The problem that I’m going to be fixing is the big problem from task 3. My users came
up with different answers on if someone’s parents could pay for them to use Enterprise
Carshare. They both saw that a family plan was available, but there was no other information
listed about family plans or directions on how to sign up. I’m going to be making a module for
the family plan, similar to the modules that Enterprise Carshare already has in their website.
Problem Improvement:
As you can see, different
information is given in
different tabs of the FAQ
and some information
isn’t given at all. If you
click the “Program Page”

16. link it will send you to a web page where you select the university that you would like to do
family sharing at. However, when you click “Saint Louis University” it send you to the page that
we have been mainly working with which has no information on family sharing.
Family sharing is a big deal within other services. You can save money, get discounts or be
eligible for other promotions if you sign up for certain services as a family. That’s why it is so
popular with phone plans and even app payments within specific phones. I believe that it can
be used as a major selling point for Enterprise Carshare and therefore, have it’s own module
within the site. I think it should look something like this:

17. The chart would match the style of the other charts within the website so that users
would have a sense of familiarity with it. I provided a brief description in addition to the chart
so that it would be even more clear what the options are and what fees applies to whom. I
chose to go with a monthly and yearly plan for family plans because a normal plan based off of
the time you are using a car would get a little confusing with multiple people on one plan. If
two people are using two different vehicles at the same time, would the rate apply only one
time or would it apply for each vehicle? Even though that decision is more on the
marketing/business side of the company, I still chose to go with it because there is less
information and clutter needed to portray on the site which ultimately leads to a better UX. I
think this is a simple but effective way to help users understand and sign up for one of
Enterprise Carshare’s potentially greatest features.