Evaluation of the usability and accessibility of citibank.com for older adults, and suggested design improvements

1. Citibank Website
Evaluation
ChickenSoup

2. Introduction
• Purpose: Evaluating usability of www.citibank.com for older adults
• User Group: Adults over the age of 65
• Need: designers often fail to make websites that make accommodations
for the needs of older adults
• Social Context: lag in technology adoption between younger and older
adults

3. Older Adults and Online Banking
• Online banking is a relatively
common activity: 61% of adult
internet users do online
banking
• Services: check account
information, deposit slips, pay
bills
• Older adult audience is highly
diverse in terms of ability,
aptitude, and attitude

4. Citibank
• www.citibank.com
• Founded in 1812
• Third largest bank

5. Accessibility Evaluation:
• Used Functional Accessibility Evaluator 1.1,
• Provided a measure of accessibility based on the website’s markup within
the categories below:
• Navigation and Orientation
• Text Equivalents
• Scripting
• Styling
• HTML Standards
Methodology

6. Survey:
To identify the parameters that would influence our study:
• the frequency of use of internet among older adults
• the frequency of use of online banking websites
• common issues or misgivings they have about online banking
• problems they usually face while using banking websites.

7. Focus Group:
• 15 minute focus group session facilitated by a moderator
• Assess participants' experiences,misgivings and biases while using online
banking websites
• Assess reactions to the citibank.com home page and contact us page.
• Emphasize on their opinions about the visual layout, colors, text size/
density and information organization of the citibank.com pages

8. Accessibility Evaluation Findings
Overall analysis of standards:
• 59.07% passed
• 25.56% warned
• 4.44% failed
• 10.93% not applicable
Failures:
• 1 subheading element is improperly nested.
• 7 subheading elements are empty.
• 3 out of 4 form controls do not meet the criteria.
• 1 data table (out of 1 total) does not meet the criteria
• All 5 th elements do not meet the criteria.
• All 88 td elements do not meet the criteria.

9. Survey Findings:
• Questionnaires from five participants
• All of the participants have experience using computers and Internet

10. Survey Findings:
• Three of them have experience using online banking system
• Three of them have complete trust of online bank
• Two participants prefer face-to-face banking

11. Survey Findings:
• Monitoring Banking Activity is most frequently used

12. FOCUS GROUP FINDINGS
split view in the group about online banking
Issues or concerns:
• Trust factor - information is not transparent
• Prefer personal relationship with bank tellers
• Prefer handling physical money
• Excuse to step out of the house

13. Possible motivation:
• Movement towards digital currency
Suggested Improvements:
• immediate feedback when a transaction is
processed
• site more personalized to their needs
• have direct contact information in the help
page.

14. Potential Re-design