James Madison University

Sports Website—Usability Testing

Drew Kevitch
SMAD 203
Executive Summary
The usability evaluation of a website is done in order to determine how effectively and
efficiently a user is able to accomplish their desired goal. It is also done to determine if a website
is user-friendly or not. There are many heuristic observations you can use to judge a websites
effectiveness. For this paper, I decided to use Nielsen’s ten characteristics discussed in class,
along with a few of Schneiderman’s “golden rules.” I used all of the ten characteristics to
evaluate the JMU sports page and determine its efficiency of its user. This site had few positives,
but also a lot of flaws that made this site ineffective for a user.
I started this usability evaluation by listing out the ten heuristics out on a sheet of paper. I
then went one by one, evaluating aspects of the aspects based off of the heuristic I was focusing
on. As I inspected the website, I ranked each heuristic based off of how much modification was
needed; 0 being none, five being major modifications needed for that specific heuristic. I found
that the biggest problem was that there was not even a section for ‘Help and Documentation,’
and there were no ‘Clearly marked exists’ anywhere.
Those two heuristics listed above were two of many modifications needed to be made to
this website. I discovered that this website is hard to maneuver and use which gives it an overall
poor usability rating, for it is not easily for the user to accomplish their goals. The ineffective
ability to efficiently use this website makes this website undesirable to use.

Introduction
For this paper, I am evaluating the usability of the James Madison University Sports
website. The purpose of this evaluation is to put myself in a users’ shoes and complete tasks on
this website to try and grasp an understanding of what a user feels and experiences when
exploring the JMU sports website. I acted as if I was a typical user and explored the page to look
up the sports schedule for specific sports, any updates and headlines from the previous games
played this week, and statistics for multiple different types of sports both male and female. The
spirit and intensity found within the JMU athletic program is overwhelming with success. I like
to brag about my love for our school sports teams but would never recommend the JMU sports
website to others because it is just too hard to navigate and does not have an enjoyable user
usability.

Methods
While going about the evaluation of the JMU Sports website, I would ask myself a series
of questions while browsing so that I had goals or tasks to accomplish like a typical user. These
questions varied from looking up the statistics of a random athlete from a random sports team, to
looking at how to buy a ticket for a game, to finding articles talking about the JMU sports teams
most recent accomplishments, to viewing the final scores of the most recent games. I did these
tasks one by one, returning to the home page after completion of these activities, so that I could
get a better feel for the website. While evaluating the usability of this website, I used Nielson’s
ten usability heuristics, which include the following:
1. Simple and natural dialogue—is the website easy to understand upon entry?
2. Speak the users’ language—does the website use language that the users will understand?
 3. Minimize users’ memory load—does the website minimize the user’s thinking?
4. Consistency—is the website consistent throughout the whole thing?
5. Feedback—does the website give you feedback?
6. Clearly marked exits—does the website make it easy for you to leave a page?
7. Shortcuts—are there short cuts that can get the user to their desired goal quickly?
8. Precise and constructive error messages—are the error messages direct and helpful?
9. Prevent errors—does the website help you prevent errors the best it can?
10. Help and documentation—does the website provide help and documentation?
I implemented a few of Schneiderman’s “golden rules,” because I found that they were
very similar and tended to overlap with Neilson’s ten heuristics. The one I focused on from
Schneiderman’s “golden rules” was to “strive for consistency,” because I felt that this is crucial
in making a website user-friendly. I mostly focused on applying these heuristics to the home
page, because the home page is what immediately pulls the user in and determines if this is a site
they want to use within the first few seconds of entry. While completing tasks throughout the
site, these heuristics were also applied and graded upon completion of the goals. For the actual
grading and rating part, I used the scale we discussed in class and the scale that is shown below.
0. à no problems
1. à cosmetic problem
2. à minor usability problem
3. à major usability problem; important to fix
4. à usability catastrophe; imperative to fix
This scale and heuristics used were the determining factors used to judge the usability of
this website. Together, they helped judge whether the JMU website was desirable by users, or
undesirable by users. I concluded that there were more flaws versus things with the website that
were desirable. Those results and the reasons for them can be found below.

Results
Below is a table containing the ten heuristics, the severity rating scale, and the problem,
where I explain why I gave it the specific rating.

Heuristic Problem Severity

Simple and natural dialogue
Speak the users’ language
The problem when it came to simple and natural 3
dialogue appeared at the top of the screen over the
primary navigation bar. The abbreviations that
represent whether the sport was male or female
and what sport is being talked about took me
more than ten seconds to understand, which
would’ve lost a users’ interest immediately upon
arrival.
Aside from the abbreviations at the top of the 2
screen, everything else was pretty easy to
understand while searching the website.
 Everything else was stated clearly and the pages
on the navigation bar are clearly marked.
Minimize users’ memory load While searching the pages on the site, I didn’t 4
notice any cookie crumb navigations, so I had no
idea how I got to the page I was on. The
homepage was also very messy and unorganized,
and the structure was unappealing to my eye. I felt
like I was looking at too many things at once and
I had no idea where to go.
Strive for Consistency I saw no problem with consistency—the whole 0
website follows the same theme throughout the
whole thing.
Feedback Everything on the website gives you feedback 0
when something is clicked on, even if what it
gives you is a modest amount.
Clearly marked exits While searching the website, I did not notice any 3
clearly marked exits to get back to the home page
or to leave the page I was currently on.
Shortcuts I did not notice any shortcuts, but each menu 0
offered on the navigation bar was pretty straight
forward as to where the page was directing you,
so I didn’t find that there was much of a problem
here.
Precise and constructive error I did not have an error message appear, so I am 0
messages not sure what it looked like
Prevent errors Since all the navigation bars are pretty straight 0
forward, I had an easy time not running into any
errors.
Help and Documentation I surfed this website for quite some time, and 4
found no forms of help or documentation, which
should be provided somewhere on this site. If it is
on this site, it is not easily accessible.

Design Suggestions:
To fix the simple and natural dialogue issue, I would keep ‘W’ and ‘M’ for men and women
but would avoid abbreviating the name of the sport. Rather than having ‘WSOC’ I would have
‘WSoccer.’ It is much easier to interpret and understand at first glance. Once the abbreviations
are fixed, that leaves the category of speaking the users’ language with no problems. In order to
minimize the users’ memory load, I would restructure the home page completely. To start, there
is no focal point when you enter the home page. There is no reason for all the blog posts and
articles to be randomly assorted and not aligned on the page, and I feel like aligning the
information on the front page and providing more structure will make things less overwhelming.
Another option would be to eliminate all of the blog posts from the home page overall and have a
separate page that can direct you to all of these posts and articles.
Another recommendation I have for this website is to add breadcrumb navigation, that way
the user can see how they got to their destination rather than just trying to remember from their
memory. The lack of existence with breadcrumb navigation leads me to my next
recommendation to help fix the problem of no clearly marked exits. If the site added back and
forward arrows to help exit or re-enter a page, that would help drastically because the user would
be able to leave the page without completely starting over from the beginning on the homepage.
Lastly, I believe that the website needs a ‘Help and Documentations’ option. Typically, the help
and documentation option is found at the bottom of nearly every home page no matter what the
site is. If a help and documentation option was placed at the bottom of this homepage, it would
fully help fix this usability heuristic, along with ‘speaking the users’ language,’ because it is a
common theme found across every website on the internet.
I believe that if these recommendations were applied to the JMU Sports website, it would
make the site a lot more enjoyable for users. As of right now, this website is barley user-friendly,
and needs a lot of improvements in order to get there. I believe that once these flaws are
addressed and changed that this website will be more user-friendly and will accompany the user
in achieving their goals more effectively and efficiently.

Sources
https://jmusports.com/index.aspx
https://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/360/f04/sessions/schneidermanGoldenRules.htm
l
I used our PowerPoints on canvas for Neilson’s ten characteristics